Our Experts

Radu Trandafir

Radu Trandafir is a mobile RF subject matter expert within the Technology Office at TechInsights. Radu’s background includes more than 25 years in designing, engineering, analyzing, and reverse engineering hardware and software systems.

Having led the Systems and S/W Analysis team for more than seven years, Radu is well versed in analyzing technology, comparing technology to patents, and conducting functional testing of a wide range of technologies.

He has an extensive background in RF hardware systems design.

John Sullivan

John Sullivan is a Senior IP Solutions Analyst with TechInsights. His more than 20 years within the organization – first with Chipworks, now TechInsights – have seen him in several different roles, from Circuit & Patent Analyst, Engineering Circuit Manager, to the IP side of the house, and into his current position.

His experience has made him a well-rounded patent analyst and reverse engineering professional. His current role involves planning and executing programs that help TechInsights clients leverage their intellectual property.

Stacy Wegner

Stacy Wegner is the Senior Technology Analyst at TechInsights’ Teardown division, responsible for ensuring the highly technical data produced by our analysts is transformed into consumable competitive intelligence. Stacy has an extensive background in advanced technology devices, marketplace analysis, and TechInsights products and practices.

Radu Trandafir

Radu Trandafir is a mobile RF subject matter expert within the Technology Office at TechInsights. Radu’s background includes more than 25 years in designing, engineering, analyzing, and reverse engineering hardware and software systems.

Having led the Systems and S/W Analysis team for more than seven years, Radu is well versed in analyzing technology, comparing technology to patents, and conducting functional testing of a wide range of technologies.

He has an extensive background in RF hardware systems design.

Stephen Russell

Dr. Russell has over 15 years’ experience in wide bandgap (WBG) device fabrication and characterization. He received his PhD in Electronic Engineering in 2013 from the University of Glasgow with a thesis entitled ‘High Performance Hydrogen-Terminated Diamond Field Effect Transistors’ and demonstrated what was at the time the highest frequency diamond transistor reported. Continuing in academia, he researched high voltage silicon carbide devices, and successfully demonstrated 3.3 kV and 10 kV variants.

He won the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics – best paper award in 2018 for the paper ‘High Temperature Electrical and Thermal Aging Performance and Application Considerations for SiC power DMOSFETs’. He also led an exploratory research project in gallium oxide for power devices, presenting findings to the Royal Institution, London.

He moved into industry in 2018 to lead development of a new silicon IGBT product line and instigated an R & D project to use silicon carbide JFETs in circuit protection applications. In 2020, he joined TechInsights as subject matter expert for power semiconductor devices keeping abreast of developments across the entire industry.

Eugene Hsu

Dr. Eugene Hsu provides Technical Support for patent licensing and patent evaluation based on reverse engineering, as well as technical structural and material analysis semiconductor devices packages. He has over 15 years of academic and professional experience in semiconductor fabrication, material analysis, and reverse engineering, and is knowledgeable in areas spanning semiconductors, device physics, optics, and photonics, as well as electrical engineering.

Eugene received his Ph.D. in Engineering Physics in 2012 from McMaster University, Canada. Since starting at TechInsights in 2012, he has also gained skill in sample preparation for process and circuit analysis. He has authored various analysis reports including Teardown and Functional Analysis of Consumer Products, Device Fabrication Processes of Processors, Image Sensors, Memory, and MeM Devices. He currently works with the IP team, providing technical analysis and reviews for patent portfolio support.

Throughout his academic and professional career, he has gained familiarity with analytics techniques including and not limited to SEM, TEM, AFM, AES, SIMS, EDS, EELS, etc., and continues to employ a combination of these techniques in reverse engineering related analysis.

He has twenty-three peer-reviewed journal, conference, and magazine publications, including two articles in Applied Physics Letters.

Ali Khazaeli

Dr. Ali Khazaeli is a subject matter expert for battery at TechInsights, with over 10 years of experience in the development, fabrication, and characterization of batteries for both consumer electronics and automotive.

He holds a Ph.D. from Queen’s University and has led an exploratory research project into the applications of advanced materials for batteries and supercapacitors.

Reza Moghaddam

Reza joined TechInsights in 2021, with over a decade experience in renewable energy systems such as Li batteries, fuel cells, water electrolyzers, and supercapacitors. He has extensive experience in scientific instruments including electrochemical stations, cameras, spectrographs, and surface-probing microscopes. In his current role at TechInsights, he conducts reverse engineering/process analysis on Li batteries, power management/generating as well as logic devices.

Reza holds a PhD (distinction) in Electrochemistry from Memorial University. Prior to joining TechInsights, he was an academic researcher and technology consultant for several years. He has published 30+ journal papers and 1 US Patent and has peer-reviewed journal papers.

Rajesh Krishnamurthy

Rajesh Krishnamurthy is a senior analyst for TechInsights, an Ottawa, Canada-based reverse engineering company. TechInsights analyses a broad range of devices, giving Rajesh a unique overview of what technologies make into the real world of semiconductor production.

Rajesh graduated in 1998 with PhD in Materials Engineering from University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada. He has more than 20 years of experience working as an analyst, focusing on semiconductor process development, and R&D of semiconductor materials and devices. He joined the TechInsights team in 2006.

Yuzo Fukuzaki

Yuzo Fukuzaki is a Senior Technology Fellow with TechInsights, focusing on logic devices. He joined TechInsights in late 2019. His background is extensive, beginning at Toshiba in 1990 focusing on DRAM development.

In 2002, Fukuzaki moved to Sony and became involved in many areas of responsibility, moving from DRAM to Logic development and managing fab activities.

In 2009, Fukuzaki represented Sony at IMEC, initiating and leading the “Insite Program”. Returning to Japan a few years later, Fukuzaki continued his work with IMEC as the SoC Foundry Device Manager and then Senior Device Manager, overseeing Sony’s early development of advanced logic technologies including FinFET.

Currently he is the leader for the More Moore Working Group, System Device Roadmap committee of Japan; he has previously held other committee positions within the semiconductor industry.

Alexandra Noguera

Alexandra Noguera is a Senior Logic Analyst at TechInsights where she provides analysis and technical support for competitive intelligence on reverse engineering of advanced CMOS technology nodes, leading SoC design and standard cells/layout analysis, and identifying IP blocks for SoC floorplan.

She has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Carleton University, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and 10 years of experience working in semiconductor circuit analysis. Alexandra joined Chipworks (now Techinsights) in 2012.

Her principal focus is leading SoC Design Analysis projects involving layout-like analyses extracting standard cell libraries, routing efficiency, power grid, clock tree, etc., across TSMC, Samsung and Intel technologies. She is also actively involved in identifying IP blocks for SoC floorplans, along with estimating gate counts, bit cell density, and standard cell libraries characterization, as well as analysis of circuit layout for translation into schematics, followed by hierarchical representation of circuit schematics focused on analog front ends, digital logic, and memory cells.

For the last 3 years she has been responsible for content creation for advanced CMOS logic process, including competitive benchmarking trends and quarterly briefings.

Dr. Jeongdong Choe

Jeongdong Choe has a Ph.D. in electronic engineering and 30 years’ experience in semiconductor process integration for DRAM, (V) NAND, SRAM, and logic devices. A Ph.D. in Electronics (Semiconductor) from Sungkyunkwan University, he also holds master’s and bachelor’s Degrees in Materials Engineering (Metallurgical) from Yonsei University. His background includes positions as a Team Lead in R&D for SK-Hynix and Samsung, where he optimized process and device architectures with state-of-the-art technologies for mass production.

At TechInsights he has been focusing on technology analysis on semiconductor process, device, and architecture. He has authored numerous articles on memory technology including DRAM Technology Trends, 2D and 3D NAND Process/Device Integration Details, and Emerging Memory such as STT-MRAM, XPoint, ReRAM and FeRAM Design and Architecture. He quarterly produces and updates a widely distributed memory roadmap on DRAM, NAND, and Emerging Memory.

Recent publications include:

• Comparing DDR5 Memory from Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix (EETimes, Feb. 2022)
• Memory Technology Update: Trends & Challenges (SISPAD 2021 Plenary Talk)
• YMTC 128L Xtacking 2.0 for SSD (Semiconductor Digest, Dec. 2021)
• Memory Technology 2021 (SEMI Korea Members Day, Sept. 2021)
• Micron D1α, The Most Advanced Node Yet on DRAM (Semiconductor Engineering, July 2021)

Jeongdong has over 100 filed/issued patents in semiconductor process integration for DRAM, (V)NAND, SRAM, and logic devices.

Jun Lu

Jun Lu is a Senior Process Analyst at TechInsights where she provides technical support for patent licensing and patent evaluation based on reverse engineering, as well as technical structural and material analysis of semiconductor devices and packages. She has over 20 years of professional experience in semiconductor manufacturing, R&D and process development, and reverse engineering, TEM microscopy and material analysis.

She joined Semiconductor Insights’ (now TechInsights) state-of-art reverse engineering lab in 2004 de-processing semiconductor devices layer by layer and routinely performing measurements and materials analyses on semiconductor devices through SEM and TEM imaging, SEM-EDS, TEM-EDS, and TEM-EELS.

She has been involved in the process and structural analysis of memory devices, advanced logic CMOS devices, MEMS devices, LCD display panels, LEDs, and multiple device packages. She also provides technical evaluation and rating of patents and analysis of device fabrication processes and structures to provide evidence of use for clients. Since year 2017 she has been responsible for creating graphical emulation of process flows using CAD tools for memory devices.

Chi Lim Tan

Chi Lim is the senior process analyst in the memory team at TechInsights, supporting memory related topics and custom analysis. He has extensive experience in process integration, technology development & transfer, and research & development for NOR, NAND and embedded FLASH. He had contributed to the successes of SSMC (NXP-TSMC joint venture), GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IMEC and Micron, prior to joining TechInsights. He earned both his master and bachelor’s degrees from the National University of Singapore.

Taylor St. Germain

Taylor St. Germain is a Forecasting Analyst at TechInsights. Taylor has received undergraduate degree from the University of Vermont. Taylor majored in statistics with a double-minor in political science and mathematics. Currently, in the middle of getting a master’s degree in applied economics from Southern New Hampshire University. Prior to TechInsights, Taylor was an economic analyst and business consultant. Taylor worked with Fortune 500 companies, trade associations, and small business to provide economic intelligence to drive strategic and profitable business decisions. Throughout this time, Taylor was also a keynote speaker that traveled the US delivering custom presentations to organizations to help them better navigate the economic cycle now and in the future.