Walden C. “Wally” Rhines (born November 11, 1946) is an American engineer and businessman. Rhines is President and CEO of Cornami, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company focused on

fully homomorphic encryption Homomorphic encryption is a form of encryption that permits users to perform computations on its encrypted data without first decrypting it. These resulting computations are left in an encrypted form which, when decrypted, result in an identical ...

. Previously, he was President and CEO of Mentor Graphics, a Siemens Business for 23 years and Executive VP of the Semiconductor Group of

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

for 21 years. Rhines was named overall CEO of the Year by ''Portland Business Journal'' in 2012 and Oregon Technology Executive of the Year by the Technology Association of Oregon in 2003. He was named an IEEE Fellow in 2017.

Early life and education

Rhines was born in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. His father, Frederick N. Rhines, was the Alcoa professor of light metals at the

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

from 1946-1959 and founder of the department of materials science and engineering at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

, from which he retired in 1978; today the department is housed in Frederick N. Rhines Hall. Rhines earned his bachelor of science in engineering (BSE) from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1968 and his master’s degree and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in materials science and engineering from Stanford University in 1970 and 1972, respectively. He earned his

M.B.A. A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as account ...

from

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , ...

in 1975.

Career

While at Stanford, Rhines co-invented the magnesium-doped

gallium nitride Gallium nitride () is a binary III/ V direct bandgap semiconductor commonly used in blue light-emitting diodes since the 1990s. The compound is a very hard material that has a Wurtzite crystal structure. Its wide band gap of 3.4 eV affords ...

blue

light-emitting diode A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (co ...

, for which he, Herb Maruska and David Stevenson were awarded a U.S.

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

in 1974.

Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride ( GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness ...

built directly on this gallium-nitride research and eventually won the 2014

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

, along with

Hiroshi Amano is a Japanese physicist, engineer and inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology. For his work he was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura for "the invention of efficient bl ...

and

Shuji Nakamura is a Japanese-born American electronic engineer and inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology, professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and is rega ...

. Rhines worked at Texas Instruments (TI) from 1972 to 1993, serving as executive vice president of the semiconductor group and president of the data systems group. While at TI, Rhines supervised development of speech synthesis chips used in the Speak & Spell; developed the first publicly available computer program (for a calculator) to calculate the Black–Scholes value of a stock option; and supervised the creation of the

TMS320 Texas Instruments TMS320 is a blanket name for a series of digital signal processors (DSPs) from Texas Instruments. It was introduced on April 8, 1983 through the TMS32010 processor, which was then the fastest DSP on the market. The processor is ...

digital signal processor. In a 1985 profile of Rhines in the '' Austin American-Statesman'', industry consultant Will Strauss told reporter Russell Mitchell: "He hinescan claim the TMS-320 digital signal processor chip; that's the one to beat on the street right now." By 1990, TI's share of the worldwide market for general purpose DSPs was approximately 60%. A January 1991 article in ''Electronic Business Buyer'' reported that " urces say that TI has the only profitable general purpose DSP operation in the world." Rhines became CEO of Mentor Graphics in 1993, when the company's annual revenue was about $340 million. The company passed $1 billion in revenue for the first time in 2011. In 2013 Mentor Graphics announced it would begin paying a quarterly dividend, making it the only of big three electronic design automation (EDA) companies to do so; ( Cadence Design Systems and

Synopsys Synopsys is an American electronic design automation (EDA) company that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon intellectual property and software security and quality. Products include tools for logic synthesis and physical de ...

are the other two). Rhines has led the company into new business areas, including providing software for the auto industry; of the big three EDA companies, analyst Tom Diffely said "Mentor has the most going on in these adjacent markets...I think (the auto industry) is going to be a long-term huge market for them." Siemens announced its $4.5 billion acquisition of Mentor Graphics on November 13, 2016; the deal closed four months later. Rhines remained as CEO of Mentor, a Siemens Business and later CEO Emeritus through 2020. Rhines joined the many-core accelerator chip company Cornami as CEO in March 2020.

Affiliations

Rhines has been elected five times (1996, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2010) to serve two-year terms as chair of the Electronic Design Automation Consortium, the international trade association for the EDA industry. He is a board member of

TriQuint Semiconductor TriQuint Semiconductor was a semiconductor company that designed, manufactured, and supplied high-performance RF modules, components and foundry services. The company was founded in 1985 in Beaverton, Oregon before moving to neighboring Hillsbor ...

(1995–2015) and QORVO (2015–present). Previously he served on the boards of

SEMATECH SEMATECH (from Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology) is a not-for-profit consortium that performs research and development to advance chip manufacturing. SEMATECH has broad engagement with various sectors of the R&D community, including chipm ...

(1989-1993), the

Semiconductor Research Corporation Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), commonly known as SRC, is a high-technology research consortium active in the semiconductor industry. It is a leading semiconductor research consortium. Todd Younkin is the incumbent president and chief ...

(2002–2020), Cirrus Logic (1995–2009), th
Global Semiconductor Alliance
(2007–2010), Global Logic Inc. (2014–2017) and the Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association, now known as the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (1984–1987). From 1996-2005 Rhines was a trustee at

Lewis & Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & C ...

, where he remains a life trustee today and he serves on the Executive Advisory Board of the Lyle College of Engineering at

Awards and honors

From Wild West to Modern Life book cover

*2021: Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award, top award issued by th
Global Semiconductor Alliance
(GSA) *2020: Semiconductor Industry Hall of Fame, VLSI Research *2019: ChipEx Global Industry Leader (issued by ChipEx Selection Committee - Leading Annual Conference of Israeli Semiconductor Industry) *2019: Sarabhai Award (Lifetime Achievement Award), India Electronics and Semiconductor Association *2017: IEEE Fellow *2016: honorary doctor of technology degree from

*2015:

Phil Kaufman Award The Phil Kaufman Award was established in 1994 by the EDA Consortium (now the Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community) to recognize individuals for their impact on electronic design by their contributions to electronic de ...

for his contributions to the EDA and IC design industries. *2014: Distinguished Eagle Scout Award (he became an

Eagle Scout Eagle Scout is the highest achievement or rank attainable in the Scouts BSA program of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Since its inception in 1911, only four percent of Scouts have earned this rank after a lengthy review process. The Eagle S ...

in 1964). *2009: International Engineering Consortium distinguished fellow award *2003: University of Michigan Alumni Society Merit Award in 2003 *2002: Semico Research Bellwether Award *1998: honorary doctor of technology degree from Nottingham Trent University *1970: U.S. Army Legion of Valor of the United States Bronze Cross for Achievement

Noted publications

* * * * * * *

Books

* * Rhines also is listed as a source in books about the evolving semiconductor industry. * *

Philanthropy

Herbert Wertheim and Wally Rhines at University of Florida in 2016

In memory of his father, Rhines endowed a graduate fellowship in Engineering at the University of Michigan in 2016 and four professorships at the University of Florida, including one in 2021 in fully homomorphic encryption in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. From 1996 to 2020 he served on the board of Classic Wines Auction in Portland, which supports a variety of children and family charities.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rhines, Wally University of Michigan College of Engineering alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni Southern Methodist University alumni American technology chief executives 1946 births Living people Businesspeople from Portland, Oregon Businesspeople from Pittsburgh Fellow Members of the IEEE