Advisory Board

Itzhak Gurantz, Ph.D. - Director

Dr. Gurantz is currently the CTO of Entropic Communications, a communications IC company. With more than 27 years’ experience in developing advanced digital communications products, Dr. Gurantz has led engineering teams that have developed complex digital and mixed-signal silicon solutions for DSL, cable modems, digital DBS, digital cable, wireless set-top boxes and networking applications. Before Entropic, he served as the Vice President of Engineering of the Conexant Systems DID division. He was a co-founder of ComStream Corporation, holding several executive positions there between 1984 and 1997. Dr. Gurantz holds BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, and received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

David Kummer

Mr. Kummer has over 26 years of experience and holds 14 patents in computer systems, graphics, and video consumer electronics designs. He joined EchoStar Corporation in 1993 and has been responsible for the Digital Broadcast Satellite (DBS) Systems group as well as the Hardware and Software groups developing all EchoStar DBS digital set top boxes. He is currently Senior Vice President of Engineering and Systems in charge of strategic direction and planning. Mr. Kummer began his career in 1979 at IBM, where he worked on the original IBM-PC. After five years at IBM, he worked for personal computer design and manufacturing companies in personal computer and graphics card design. He received a BSEE from Florida Atlantic University.

Michael Schroter, Ph.D.

Dr. Schroter is a co-founder of XMOD Technologies, a start-up company specializing in high-frequency semiconductor device modeling services for foundries and design houses. A Full Professor as the Chair for Electron Devices and Integrated Circuits at Dresden University of Technology in Dresden, Germany since 1999, he was also appointed Research Professor (part-time) at the University of California, San Diego in 2003. Previously, at Rockwell Semiconductor Systems, Dr. Schroter established and managed the RF Device Modeling Group. He was responsible for modeling bipolar and MOS transistors as well as passive devices with emphasis on high-frequency process technologies and applications. Earlier, he was with Nortel Networks and Bell Northern Research in Ottawa, where he worked on advanced bipolar transistor modeling and parameter extraction research and development. Dr. Schroter received his Dipl.-Ing. and Dr.-Ing. Degrees in Electrical Engineering and the "venia legendi" on semiconductor devices in 1982, 1988, and 1994, respectively, from the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany.

Paul Struhsaker

Mr. Struhsaker is the VP of Engineering at Motorola PCS. Prior to joining Motorola, he was CTO of Texas Instruments WLAN and Broadband Wireless Business Unit. In his career he has held management and principal engineering roles with Raze Technologies, World Access/NERA Telecommunications, Alcatel/Digital Switch Corporation, and Aironet Wireless Communications (ultimately acquired by Cisco). Earlier he served in senior positions at E-Systems (later acquired by Raytheon) and the National Security Agency where he developed communication surveillance systems, advanced signal processing technologies, adaptive antennas, and software radio systems. Mr. Struhsaker earned a BSEE summa cum laude degree from the University of Akron and later an MSEE with honors from the Johns Hopkins University. He holds over 20 patents in wireless LAN, wireless access, and CDMA technology. He is also very active in telecommunications standards-making bodies -- he has served as Vice-Chairman of IEEE 802.16 Broadband Wireless Access standards group, and as Chairman of the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN direct sequence physical layer standards group.