Tier Logic Board of Directors

Laurence G. Walker

Laurence Walker co-founded and served as chief executive officer of C-Port Corporation, a pioneer in the network processor industry, which was acquired by Motorola in 2000. Following the acquisition, Walker served as vice president of strategy for Motorola’s Network and Computing Systems Group, and then as vice president and general manager of the Network and Computing Systems Group until 2002. From August 1996 to May 1997, Walker served as chief executive officer of CertCo, a digital certification supplier. Walker served as vice president and general manager, Network Products Business Unit, of Digital Equipment Corporation from January 1994 to July 1996. From 1981 to 1994, he held a variety of other management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation.

In addition to chairing Tier Logic's board, Walker currently serves as a director of Silicon Laboratories, Autocell Networks, Mintera Corporation, and ColdStor Data.

Doug Laird

Doug Laird has over 31 years of semiconductor industry experience, including serving as Cswitch's CEO and Transmeta's executive VP of product development. Earlier in his career, Laird held leadership positions at LSI Logic and Sun Microsystems.

Raminda Madurawe

Raminda Madurawe invented the 3D FPGA concept and founded Tier Logic in March 2002. He has over 23 years of experience in FPGAs and has been awarded 100 patents; 50 of those at Tier Logic. Before founding Tier Logic, Madurawe spent the bulk of his career at Altera Corp. and National Semiconductor in a variety of areas including product, test, and process engineering.

Rob Soni

Rob Soni has helped launch and build more than 30 successful start-up businesses across a range of technologies. More than two dozen of those companies have gone on to public offerings or profitable acquisitions.

Soni is currently a general partner at Matrix Partners, which he joined in 2003. His portfolio includes start-ups in network security, data center virtualization, analog and programmable semiconductors, and industrial waste reclamation. In 1994 he signed on with Bessemer Venture Partners where he founded the firm’s early-stage data communications practice. In 1999, while still at Bessemer, Soni co-founded Intersect Software, a maker of project, portfolio and resource management software. He remains the company’s chairman. Soni began his career at Boston Consulting Group.

Soni has held board seats for the National Venture Capital Association, The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), and the Global Semiconductor Alliance. In addition to his position on Tier Logic's board, Soni currently sits on the boards of Akorri Networks, Crossbeam Systems, Digital Reef, Envio Networks, Xikota, and WaterScience.

Vijay Ullal

Vijay Ullal joined Maxim in 1989 as senior member of technical staff. Over the years Ullal deepened his experience in technology development, manufacturing, supply chain activities, and cost control. He oversaw the development of over 80 percent of Maxim's process technologies, and orchestrated the purchase and ramp-up of five wafer fabs. Ullal holds several patents in mixed-signal process technology.

In his current role as group president, Ullal is responsible for the definition, development, manufacturing, and marketing of products for the Handheld Consumer Division, which consists of four business units. He is also responsible for the company's operations. He oversees front-end process and wafer-level package technology development at four sites, wafer fab manufacturing at five sites, and test operations at two sites.

Ullal is a founder of the Bay Area IITM alumni association and has been active in charitable works for women in India.