About Us
Management
Dr S Karl Heeks
CEO and co-founder
Dr S Karl Heeks has spent around 20 years in senior technical and commercial roles within blue chip organisations, SMEs and start-ups. He is experienced in licensing and general management in high technology in Europe, USA and Asia. Previously he was Director of Business Development at Cambridge Display Technology Ltd where he was part of a small team which won many prestigious awards including the highest ranking UK Company in the Delloite and Touché Fast 500 in 2002. Karl’s commercial expertise is complemented by a strong engineering background. He is an inventor on over 30 granted and pending patents worldwide and has been awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering's Gold MacRobert Award for 'outstanding innovation in engineering'.
Professor Klaus D McDonald-Maier
CTO and co-founder
Professor Klaus McDonald-Maier leads the technical development program at UltraSoC and chairs the Technology Advisory Board. He is internationally recognised as an expert in embedded systems and Systems-on Chip technology. He is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at the University of Essex and has held academic positions at the University of Kent and the University of Jena. Previously at Infineon Technologies AG he was responsible for the architecture specification of advanced SoC processor cores, and modules. Klaus McDonald-Maier has authored over 150 papers and holds 12 patents granted and pending worldwide. He is a Fellow of the IET and a senior member of IEEE.
Dr Andrew Hopkins
Head of Engineering
Dr Andrew Hopkins leads the development of UltraDebug™ and an associated technical marketing package. He is experienced in all aspects of computer architecture including SoC design, system level development support and embedded systems engineering. His career began in 2003 as a senior researcher at the University of Kent and in 2005 he relocated to the University of Essex.
He has managed large multi-institution engineering programs with elite international partners. He has 4 patents pending, numerous technical publications and has served as a referee for several IEEE, IET and Elsevier journals. Andrew obtained a top first in Computer System Engineering from the University of Kent in 2003 where he also took the IEE (IET) prize for the highest placed BEng.
Mr Andrew Bower
Head of Software
Andrew Bower leads the development of the UltraDevelop™ IDE software which supports the UltraDebug™ platform. Andrew is a skilled project manager with 8 years experience in embedded engineering, debug tools and silicon testing and has worked in Europe and the Far East. His career in the semiconductor industry began in 2001 at Digital Communication Technologies Ltd and more recently he was a senior staff member developing core software and customer integration projects for multimedia coprocessors at Broadcom Europe Ltd.
Andrew has a BA in Computer Science from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Board
Dr S Karl Heeks
CEO
Professor Klaus D McDonald-Maier
CTO
Dr John Read
Non-Executive Chairman
Dr John Read is an experienced manager with a record of developing profitable, high-tech semiconductor businesses. In the late 1990s he was a Director of GEC Plessey Semiconductors and Joint President of GPS Inc. in California. Since then he has served on the board of a number of companies including Alphamosaic, and Anadigm Limited from 2000 to 2003. Other positions held include Technical Director of Texas Instruments in the UK, Technical Director at STC Telecommunications, and Director of Engineering at Honeywell's Solid State Electronics in Minnesota, Director of the semiconductor company Si-Light Technologies Limited and Chairman of Iceni Advisory Limited. He is also a Non-Executive Director of Cyan Technology plc. He is an active mentor for the Cambridge Entrepreneurship Centre and for SETSquared in Surrey.
Technology Advisors to the Board
Mr Steve Barlow
Steve Barlow is an electronics and software development veteran with over 25 years experience developing cutting-edge technology. He co-founded Alphamosaic, the video start-up, in 2001 which was successfully sold to Broadcom in 2004 for US$123M after which he stayed on as Senior Director of Engineering developing their next generation video solution with a team of 80 staff. Prior to this he spent 16 years at Cambridge Consultants where he was an Associate Director and leader of the Embedded Digital Systems group, developing a variety of innovative products. Steve has a starred first in Electrical Sciences from Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Mr Stuart Jobbins
Stuart Jobbins has over 26 years experience in software system development and technical management in embedded systems in a broad range of backgrounds including industrial, defence, automotive and aerospace. He has held senior technical positions at Siemens and Delphi and is currently Chief of Software Engineering and Head of the Software Centre of Excellence at Rolls Royce.