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Contributions to Companies

The Electrical Engineering department is proud of its association with the history and founding of several companies of broad impact. The following page lists a sample of alumni of our program, as well current or former faculty members, who established successful ventures.

Ambarella, founded in 2004, is a technology leader in low power, high definition video compression and image processing semiconductors.

Didier LeGall, co-Founder (MS and PhD)

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AMD, founded in 1969, is a global supplier of integrated circuits for personal and networked computing and communications.

John Gifford, Founder (BS ‘63)

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Applied Wave Research is a leader in high-frequency electronic design automation (EDA) software.

Joseph Pekarek, co-Founder (PhD '96)

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Blizzard Entertainment® , founded in 1991, is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software. After establishing the Blizzard Entertainment label in 1994, the company quickly became one of the most popular and well-respected makers of computer games.

Michael Morhaime, President and co-founder (BS ‘90)

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Broadcom, founded in 1991, specializes in VoIP, broadband communications solutions, enterprise wireless networking, wi-fi integrated circuits, etc.

Henry Samueli, Co-founder (BS ‘75, MS ‘76, PhD ‘80)
Henry T. Nicholas, III, Co-founder (BS ’82, MS ’85, PhD ’98)

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Maxim Integrated Products, founded in 1983, develops, manufactures and markets high performance CMOS integrated circuits and semiconductor-based systems.

John Gifford, Founder (BS ‘63)

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Qualcomm, founded in 1985, is a designer and supplier of CDMA chipsets, system software, network base stations, handsets, modems, kid trackers, camera phones, MP3 players, game players, etc.

Klein Gilhousen, Co-founder (BS ‘69)
Andrew Viterbi, Co-founder, UCLA Professor of Electrical Engineering (1963-1973).

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Founded in 1986, ViaSat produces innovative satellite and other wireless communication products that enable fast, secure, and efficient communications to any location.

Mark J. Miller (MS)

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Innovent Systems was a successful start-up company acquired by Broadcom in 2000. The company was a pioneer in the development and commercial integration of radio frequency (RF) integrated circuits for short-range wireless data communications.

Reza Rofougaran, Founder (BS ‘86, MS ‘88, PhD ‘98)

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Cognet Microsystems was a successful fiber optic start-up company acquired by Intel in 2001.

Professor Bahram Jalali, Founder.