MMIC Industry Veteran Paul Blount Joins mmTron as Technology Fellow

mmTron is pleased to announce that Paul Blount has joined the company as a Technology Fellow. In this role, he will design MMIC products, focusing on low noise and high linearity amplifiers, and help mmTron’s leadership team develop the operations infrastructure to accelerate growth.

“We are very fortunate to have Paul at mmTron,” said Seyed Tabatabaei, mmTron founder and CEO. “Paul will contribute his deep MMIC design expertise to expand our product portfolio and his business experience from Custom MMIC, which he grew into a successful and highly regarded MMIC supplier.”

Blount started Custom MMIC in his basement in 2006. Over the next 15 years, he led the company to become a major supplier of MMICs for defense, satellite, instrumentation, and commercial systems. Custom MMIC was acquired by Qorvo for $96 million in 2020.

“Even as president and CEO of Custom MMIC, I spent time doing MMIC design and staying close to the technology,” said Blount. “Joining mmTron gives me the opportunity to stay at the forefront of mmWave MMIC design, exploring new ideas to help mmTron push their MMIC performance in the mmWave and sub-THz bands.”

Before starting Custom MMIC, Blount was a senior design engineer at Hittite Microwave, where he was a leading contributor to many product lines launched by Hittite. Before Hittite, he worked at Alpha Industries (now Skyworks) and Thorn EMI Electronics.

mmTron Appoints Gary Lerude as Marketing Director

Semiconductor Industry Veteran and Past Technical Editor of Microwave Journal to Guide mmTron’s Branding and External Positioning

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Feb. 3, 2023 – mmTron, Inc., a leading fabless designer of millimeter-wave (mmWave) broadband products for the Satcom, 5G/6G, aerospace and defense markets, has named RF/microwave industry veteran Gary Lerude as Marketing Director, with responsibility for defining and implementing the marketing strategy to communicate mmTron’s unique capabilities and products.

Lerude brings over four decades of marketing, business development and product management expertise to leading semiconductor firms, driving the development and commercialization of pioneering technology, from device to system, across both defense and commercial markets.

Lerude most recently served as a technical editor for Microwave Journal (MWJ), the industry’s leading authority on RF and microwave technology. His eight-year tenure at MWJ helped strengthen the Journal’s reputation for in-depth, quality coverage of both technical and business trends.

Lerude began his career as at Texas Instruments (TI), where he helped birth the gallium arsenide (GaAs) MMIC industry, ushering in the era of monolithic integrated circuits, which today play a key role in both commercial and military microwave systems because of the technology’s reduced size, low cost, high reproducibility and repeatable performance. During his 19-year tenure at TI, he held a range of roles, from design engineering and program and product management to marketing and business development.

Following TI, Lerude held product management and business development roles at M/A-COM and at TriQuint Semiconductor, prior to its merger with RFMD to create Qorvo. At M/A-COM, Lerude supported two acquisitions during a time of consolidation in the RF/microwave industry, which enabled the company to expand and strengthen its position in defense markets.

“We’re pleased to have someone with Gary’s experience and capabilities to take mmTron’s story to the industry in this pivotal coming-out year for the company,” says Seyed Tabatabaei, founder and CEO of mmTron.

“Joining mmTron echoes the excitement of my early days at TI,” adds Lerude, noting that mmTron is newly emerging in the mmwave market. “mmTron is all about offering differentiated performance using gallium nitride (GaN) and GaAs technologies. The technical team is focused on optimizing output power, efficiency and linearity in products that are the next frontier in mmwave 5G and Satcom infrastructure.”

Lerude is a Life member of IEEE and the Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S).

About mmTron, Inc.
Founded in 2020 by industry veterans and visionaries in semiconductor millimeter-wave design, mmTron is powering the world’s 5G/6G and satcom future. mmTron leads the industry in mmWave broadband and narrowband products for advanced wireless, defense, and aerospace communication markets. The company’s designs offer the highest linearity in the industry. mmTron leverages turnkey commercial foundry technology with innovative design solutions to deliver linearity, efficiency, and performance for the most demanding mobility industries driving tomorrow’s internet.
Learn more about mmTron’s MMIC designs and high-frequency products in GaAs, GaN, InP and SiGe by visiting mmTron.com.

mmTron Appoints Dr. Michael Roberg as Engineering Fellow

Former Qorvo Senior Technologist Leading mmTron’s Advanced MMIC Product Development

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Dec. 21, 2022 — mmTron, Inc., a leading fabless designer of millimeter-wave (mmWave) broadband products for the Satcom, 5G/6G, aerospace and defense markets has named Dr. Michael Roberg as Engineering Fellow based at the company’s Redwood City headquarters.

As a senior technical leader, Roberg has developed innovative aerospace and defense microwave products for amplifier, radar, communication and sensing applications.

Most recently, he served as MMIC Design Engineering Fellow for Qorvo, Inc. in the High Performance Analog business unit, where he was responsible for GaN MMIC product development for commercial and military applications.

Prior to Qorvo, Roberg spent six years as a senior member of the engineering staff at Lockheed Martin Corp.’s Maritime Systems and Sensors business unit in Moorestown, New Jersey. In that capacity, he served as a radar system design engineer on the the Advanced Radar Technology Integrated System Testbed (ARTIST) program, a joint UK/U.S. naval radar technology demonstrator program that derisks technlogies for next-generation active electronically scanned surface radar systems.

“I’m thrilled to be a part of the amazing mmTron team as the leader of our millimeter-wave integrated circuit design efforts,” says Roberg. “Our innovations drive world class product development which enable breakthrough communication system performance.”

“Dr. Roberg brings a wealth of semiconductor industry and MMIC design experience to mmTron. With his impressive track record and in-depth knowledge designing mmWave products for the commercial market, he will be instrumental in driving mmTron’s growth and advanced technology leadership in mmWave components,” adds Seyed Tabatabaei, founder and CEO of mmTron.

Roberg also serves as a member of the IEEE Microwave Theory & Technology Society (MTT-S) TC-12 Microwave High-Power Techniques and Technical Committees, and received the organization’s Outstanding Young Engineer Award in 2021.

About mmTron, Inc.

Founded in 2020 by industry veterans and visionaries in semiconductor millimeter-wave design, mmTron is powering the world’s 5G/6G and satcom future. mmTron leads the industry in mmWave broadband and narrowband products for advanced wireless, defense, and aerospace communication markets. The company’s designs offer the highest linearity in the industry. mmTron leverages turnkey commercial foundry technology with innovative design solutions to deliver linearity, efficiency, and performance for the most demanding mobility industries driving tomorrow’s internet.

mmTron Building Experienced Sales Team with Latest Appointment of B. J. Stookey as Sales Manager

Former Teledyne Microwave Solutions Director to Focus on Expanding mmTron’s Market Outreach

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Nov. 21, 2022 – mmTron, Inc., a leading fabless designer of millimeter-wave (mmWave) broadband products for the Satcom, 5G/6G, aerospace and defense markets announced today the appointment of B. J. Stookey as Sales Manager, reporting to Dave Horton, VP of Sales and Business Development.

A customer-facing business development leader, Stookey brings more than two decades of sales expertise in the RF/Microwave industry working for companies such as Teledyne Microwave Solutions, Loral Microwave Group and Avnet Electronics.

Stookey previously served as director of High Reliability Value Added Services for Teledyne Microwave Solutions, a world-leading supplier of integrated microwave assemblies optimized for the most demanding environments. He also has held multiple domestic and international sales roles for Loral Microwave Group, Dynatech Spectrum, and Meadowlark Consulting Group, in addition to serving as director of Sales and Marketing for Avnet Microwave Technical Solutions.

“B. J. is a great addition to our sales team with significant understanding of the RF and microwave ecosystem and what customers are looking for in semiconductor chip design, especially in the military and aerospace arena,” says Dave Horton, vice president of Business Development and Sales for mmTron.

“mmTron offers greater agility, coupled with disruptive technology, that is very exciting,” said Stookey. “Our ability to serve customers quickly and thoughtfully will be a big factor in our success.”

About mmTron, Inc.


Founded in 2020 by industry veterans and visionaries in semiconductor millimeter-wave design, mmTron is powering the world’s 5G/6G and satcom future. mmTron leads the industry in mmWave broadband and narrowband products for advanced wireless, defense, and aerospace communication markets. The company’s designs offer the highest linearity in the industry. mmTron leverages turnkey commercial foundry technology with innovative design solutions to deliver linearity, efficiency, and performance for the most demanding mobility industries driving tomorrow’s internet.
Learn more about mmTron’s MMIC designs and high-frequency products in GaAs, GaN, InP and SiGe by visiting mmTron.com.

Silicon Catalyst Adds mmTron to Incubator Program

mmTron is honored to announce it has been selected to join the Silicon Catalyst incubator program. Silicon Catalyst, whose tag line is We accelerate semiconductor startups from PowerPoint to prototype, selected mmTron because of the important role mmWave MMICs are playing in the 5G radio access network.

In assessing mmTron, Silicon Catalyst wrote on their website:

“mmTron’s mmWave GaN, GaAs, SiGe, InP, and RFSOI products are highly differentiated in the marketplace and address the insatiable appetite for bandwidth in 5G, SATCOM, military, aerospace, satellite and the commercial communication markets.”

READ ARTICLE