Category: Semiconductors

63. Nicholas Harris, Ph.D., Founder & CEO, Lightmatter

63. Nicholas Harris, Ph.D., Founder & CEO, Lightmatter

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In Lightmatter co-founder Nick Harris, Ph.D, tells us how he’s spending the $800MM entrusted to him by investors. We explore how photonics is reshaping datacenter communications today. The physics of why light beats electricity for data transport, and how Lightmatter’s Passage interconnects and Guide lasers deliver. 

 

0:11 – Welcome & introduction to Nick Harris and Lightmatter 

0:49 – Lightmatter’s mission: a new Moore’s Law with light 

2:46 – Nick’s origin story: from Micron to MIT to founding Lightmatter 

10:35 – Why light beats electricity for moving data 

16:12 – The chip “shoreline problem” and inventing Passage 

25:00 – The photonic interposer: Lightmatter’s flagship breakthrough 

38:19 – What sets Lightmatter apart 

42:45 – Back to the original vision: the future of optical computing 

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48. Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP at AMD

48. Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP at AMD

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AMD’s Mark Papermaster, CTO and EVP, talked with me about his background, AMD’s history, and how the company came to position itself as a “bankable supplier” with one of the most diverse semiconductor portfolios for the age of AI: CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, accelerators, custom development, and with rack-scale systems with the pending acquisition of ZT Systems.  A focus on performance and open-ness are AMD’s guiding lights.  Needless to say, we discussed DeepSeek AI, too.  

Note the “skip to” audio time stamps below.  You can read the related article here in 3 minutes.     

Host: Ali Tabibian of GTK Partners.  

On some podcast players you can click to jump to the timestamps below. 

(0:00) Introduction to AMD 

(7:23) Mark’s background and lessons from the iPhone and iPod 

(15:10) The whole banana, or a comprehensive solution suite   

(23:32) DeepSeek AI and the benefit of constraints 

(27:37) Software and an open approach 

(32:30) Balancing investing in innovation and margins 

 

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