Executive Team
MICHAEL DE NIL
CEO, Co-Founder & Board Member
Michael is a pioneer of modern Wi-Fi chips with an extensive background in digital chip design and low-power digital architectures. Prior to founding Morse Micro, Michael worked for Imec and Broadcom as wireless chip designer, revolutionizing connectivity of modern mobile phones.
In 2016 he seized an opportunity to change the game with the rise of IoT and the inception of a new Wi-Fi standard, IEEE802.11ah and founded Morse Micro, where he has since raised 200M in funding and commercialized the first record breaking Wi-Fi HaLow SoC that is about to power a new wave of IoT devices.
MARIN PEPLINSKI
Chief People Officer
Marin has spent her career working at the intersection of people and technology. Her passion and experience lie in building and scaling successful deep technology companies.
With a Masters of Organizational Psychology, Marin builds high-performing teams. Marin led Morse Micro’s growth from a small start-up in an incubation hub to an internationally recognised semiconductor player with one of the biggest Wi-Fi chip teams in the world. Marin is the champion of Morse Micro’s inclusive and positive culture.
ANDREW TERRY
CTO, Co-Founder & Board Member
Andrew (Andy) Terry played a key role in the design of modern Wi-Fi radios in mixed-signal integrated circuits and was recognized with the President’s award at Broadcom for pioneering on-chip signal integrity work on the radios of landmark Wi-Fi chips.
Andy’s radio mastery underpins key functionalities of MM6108, the first record-breaking Wi-Fi HaLow SoC. As Morse Micro’s CTO Andy leads the engineering teams to successfully design world-leading Wi-Fi chips.
PHILLIP KUMIN
SVP Worldwide Sales & Business Development
Phillip is a veteran in the Semiconductors sales arena, having worked as Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Sales Operations for Synaptics, where he managed a large sales team and grew sales to $1.34 billion. Phil was also the founder and managing partner of Paragon Technical, an end-to-end semiconductor sales partner, leading end-customers to success by matching them with the right technology partners.
PRAKASH GUDA
VP Marketing & Product Management
A Wi-Fi expert with more than 20 years of experience, Prakash is well versed in the business world while having a strong engineering background. He held leadership roles at Vocera (now Stryker) and led Wi-Fi teams at Aruba and Broadcom, among others. He holds M.S. and B.S. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon, with multiple patents developed in the past decade.
PROF. NEIL WESTE
Fellow
Neil is an inventor, a visionary technologist and a distinguished researcher in the field of engineering. He co-authored the textbook “Principles of CMOS VLSI Design – A Systems Perspective” and has worked in many aspects of integrated-circuit design. Neil co-founded Radiata Communications, the world’s first company to commercialize a IEEE 802.11a Wi-Fi chip, purchased by CISCO in 2000. He is a key contributor to the development of Morse Micro RISC-V based digital architecture that underpin the company’s first commercial product, MM6108.
KISHORE CHIKKAM
VP Systems & Software
Kishore has two decades of experience in Systems Design for Wireless LAN Chips. Before joining Morse Micro, Kishore worked for large semiconductor companies, including Athena Semiconductors, LifeSignals, Broadcom. Kishore leads the systems and software teams from design to deployment in the field to ensure the world-leading performance of Morse Micro chips.
CHAD O’NEILL
VP of Applications
Chad has over 22 years of experience in the Wi-Fi industry working in all aspects of chip development from silicon to the cloud and product security. Chad honed his skills at Radiata, Cisco, G2 Microsystems, Broadcom, co-founded Zentri and Silicon labs before joining Morse Micro in 2021 and currently leads Morse applications team as a VP of Applications.
EDDIE CHANG
VP & Country Manager, Greater China
Eddie is a seasoned commercial leader with decades of experience in the semiconductor industry including wireless technology and communication solutions.
He works closely with leading ODMs and module partners in the Greater China region to secure new design-wins for MM6108 and leads a customer support team to ensure the successful deployment of Wi-Fi Halow with ODMs and OEMs.
BOB LUTZE
VP Quality & Reliability
Bob is an expert in semiconductor QA. He was VP of Quality at Broadcom, where he grew the company into a highly functional organization exceeding all market quality metrics across all major industry segments. Bob has over 30 years experience including Hewlett Packard, Honeywell Solid State Electronics Center, Brooktree Semiconductor, MetaSoft and Broadcom Corporation.
JING-JING LIANG
Head of Operations
Jing Jing is an expert in fabless semiconductor Supply Chain Management and a Business Operations expert, gaining over 23 years experience at Marvell Technology Inc. Lark Health Technologies and QST Corporation. Jing Jing established QST Solutions, which developed successful rapidly growing IMU sensor chips. At Lark Health, Jing Jing created an international product development and delivery system to provide smart device tools for health monitoring.
DR. DAVE GOODALL
VP Standards
Dave is one of the Wi-Fi pioneers and has been a leader in the field for more than 20 years. Dave’s Wi-Fi track record spans across major players, from Radiata to Cisco, G2 Microsystems and Broadcom. Dave joined Morse Micro as its first employee in 2016 and has since led Morse Micro’s standards team working on the 802.11ah standard with the IEEE and the Wi-Fi Alliance.
RICHARD HE
Sales Director, America West
Richard brings over 12 years of OEM/ODM expertise and 5+ years in IoT, cloud, smart Home and go to market experience. Prior to Morse Micro he helped launch several new projects at Tuya and delivered revenue growth of $400M+ with a world leading camera and surveillance OEM. He has a proven track record in driving revenue growth.
DAVE MARKOWSKI
Sales Director, Mid America
With 25 years of experience building and maintaining customer portfolios, Dave has helped grow revenue across IoT/IIoT, software/SaaS, semiconductors, wireless, and communications markets. Prior to joining Morse Micro Dave spent three years building the sales team at Everactive, a VC backed Industrial IoT company. He holds an MBA and BS in Computer Engineering.
BOB SATO
Country Manager, Director of Japan Sales
With over 25 years of combined sales and business development experience, Bob has led semiconductor, IP, software, and system solution sales across North America, Japan, and South Korea. Bob provides a valuable bridge between U.S. companies and their Japanese counterparts due to his profound experience with both business cultures.
JULIUS BAXTER
VP of ASIC Engineering
Julius (Jules) joined Morse in 2018 to work on the digital systems and has since been involved in all things ASIC-design at the company, contributing to design, verification, tooling and chip bringup, rising to the rank of VP of ASIC Engineering.
He was instrumental in finessing the RISC-V processor system in MM6108 and he now leads the teams working on the Company’s second and third generation products, helping make Morse Micro a world leader in its field. His prior experience includes Broadcom and Qualcomm/CSR.
MAGGIE GASTON
Head of Communications
Maggie is an experienced communicator with extensive experience working with start-ups and unicorns across the deep-tech space in Australia and the UK. She brings fresh perspectives from across the technology industry including semiconductors, cybersecurity and data analytics/AI.
Non-Executive Board Members and Advisors
RAY STATA
Founder and Chairman of Analog Devices, Inc. Ray Stata is an entrepreneur and businessperson who has been at the head of 9 different companies and is presently an investor and board member.
BILL BARTEE
General Partner at Main Sequence Ventures. Bill Bartee was the co-founder and Managing Director of Blackbird Ventures and of Southern Cross Venture Partners. Bill was an early investor in Altium, Canva, Culture Amp, Seek & Quantenna.
ROBYN DENHOLM
Operating partner of Blackbird Ventures, supporting Morse Micro as an advisor to the board. Robyn Denholm is also the Inaugural Chair of the Technology Council of Australia and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tesla Inc.
DR. SAM HEIDARI
Esteemed CEO and Chairman in the semiconductor sector, currently holds the position of CEO at Lumotive, and serves as Chairman at Arctic Semiconductor. He previously was CEO and Chairman at Quantenna, CEO at Doradus Technologies, and CTO at Ikanos. Honored with multiple industry awards, he holds over 50 patents and serves on several prestigious boards.
INVESTORS
OUR OFFICES
Surry Hills, NSW 2010 AUSTRALIA
Portola Valley, CA
Hangzhou, China
Bangalore, India
Cambridge, UK