Walden C. "Wally" Rhines (born November 11, 1946) is an American engineer and businessman. He is the president and CEO of Cornami, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company focused on fully homomorphic encryption. Previously, he was the president and CEO of Mentor Graphics, a Siemens Business for 23 years and Executive VP of the Semiconductor Group of Texas Instruments for 21 years.[1][2] 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.[3][4][5] He was named an IEEE Fellow in 2017.[6]
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 digital signal processor.[19][20][21] In a 1985 profile of Rhines in the Austin American-Statesman, industry consultant Will Strauss told reporter Russell Mitchell: "He [Rhines] can claim the TMS-320 digital signal processor chip; that's the one to beat on the street right now."[22]
Rhines became CEO of Mentor Graphics in 1993, when the company's annual revenue was about $340 million.[23][24] The company passed $1 billion in revenue for the first time in 2011.[25] 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 are the other two).[26]
Siemens announced its $4.5 billion acquisition of Mentor Graphics on November 13, 2016; the deal closed four months later.[27] 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.[28]
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[36] and four professorships at the University of Florida, including one in 2021 in fully homomorphic encryption in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering.[37] From 1996 to 2020 he served on the board of Classic Wines Auction in Portland, which supports a variety of children and family charities.[38]
Awards and honors
Cover of Wally Rhines' 2019 memoir.
2021: Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award, top award issued by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA)[39]
2020: Semiconductor Industry Hall of Fame, VLSI Research[40]
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[41]
Rhines, W.C. (2005). "Moore's law is unconstitutional". Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on VLSA Design. IEEE. pp.31–32. doi:10.1109/ICVD.2005.121.
Rhines, W.C. (2003). "Part VII: Designers Face Critical Challenges and Discontinuities in Analog/Mixed Signal Design and Physical Verification". In Kuehlmann, Andreas (ed.). The best of ICCAD: 20 years of excellence in computer-aided design. Boston [u.a.]: Kluwer Academic Publ. pp.659–662. ISBN978-1-4020-7391-5.
Books
Rhines, Dr. Walden (2020). Predicting Semiconductor Business Trends After Moore's Law. ISBN978-1674536026.
Rhines, Dr. Walden (2019). From Wild West to Modern Life: Semiconductor Industry Evolution. ISBN978-1095793169.
↑ Stevens, Suzanne (6 December 2012). "Gallery: Oregon's Most Admired CEOs". Portland Business Journal. American City Business Journals. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
↑ George, Vander Voort; Francis, Warmuth; Samuel, Purdy; Albert, Szirmae (1993). Metallography: Past, Present, and Future. Philadelphia, PA: American Society for Testing and Materials. p.73. ISBN0-8031-1484-2. Retrieved 29 October 2014.
↑ Steinert-Threlkeld, Tom (19 October 1993). "2nd-ranking exec in TI microchip division to become president of Mentor Graphics". The Dallas Morning News.
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