Photonics Entrepreneurship and Investment

PSC Semi-Annual Conference and Workshop

Photonics Society Of Chinese Heritage (PSC)

中華光電學會

Workshop description

Speakers and Panelists

Dr. Reza Khorasaninejad

"Photonics in a Needle: Lessons from Lab to Clinic"

Founder & CEO, LEADOPTIK
Reza Khorasaninejad, PhD, is Founder and CEO of LEADOPTIK, which developed the LIA™ platform, a needle-based optical imaging system that gives physicians real-time tissue confirmation during lung biopsies. As a postdoc at Harvard, he co-invented the first high-efficiency metasurface (flat optics) lenses. He previously co-founded Brelyon, an immersive display technology company.

Dr. Steve Fu

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Partner, Celesta Capital
Dr. Steve Fu has built a career appreciably increasing corporate value through technology investments and incubation, M&A, and restructuring. Prior to Celesta, he was the chief strategy officer of Fairchild Semiconductors, a recognized leader of power and energy management solutions. Steve led Fairchild’s central R&D teams, new business incubation, partnerships, restructuring, and acquisitions. Prior to this, Steve drove corporate strategy development at Maxim Integrated Products as well as VMware’s desktop virtualization business, a leading enterprise software company. During the last four years of Steve's eleven-year career at Cisco, he developed and executed strategies for Cisco’s strategic semiconductor practice and emerging technology, consumer, and China investments.

Marcus Yang

"From Intel to Startup: Why Building a Photonics Company for the AI Data Center Era"

Founder & CEO, SiPhi
Marcus Yang is the Founder and CEO of SiPhi, Inc., a Santa Clara silicon photonics startup building EPIC chipsets and smart control for next-generation optics in AI data centers. With over 20 years in the semiconductor industry, including time as Senior Director of Silicon Photonics at Intel, he holds over 20 patents, has worked as a Technical Fellow, and is a past President of the Photonics Society of Chinese Heritage.

Albert Zhang

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Founder & CEO, SiLith
Albert Zhang is Founder and CEO of Silith Technology, a Singapore-based silicon photonics company developing high-speed optical interconnect solutions for AI infrastructure. He holds a PhD in Microelectronics from Fudan University and an MBA from CUHK. Before founding Silith, he spent 17 years at SMIC, leading lithography R&D and fab operations, with extensive experience in technology development, manufacturing ramp-up, and high- volume semiconductor production.

Dr. Martin Vallo

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Senior Market and Technology Analyst, Yole Group
Martin Vallo, PhD is Senior Technology & Market Analyst, Photonics at Yole Group. He is specialized in optical communication and semiconductor lasers within the Photonics & Sensing activities at Yole Group. With 12 years’ experience within semiconductor technology, Martin is involved today in the development of technology & market products as well as the production of custom consulting projects. Prior his mission at Yole Group, he worked at CEA (Grenoble, France), with a mission focused on the epitaxial growth of InGaN/GaN core-shell nanowire LEDs by MOCVD and their characterization for highly flexible photonic devices. Martin graduated from Academy of Sciences, Institute of Electrical Engineering (Slovakia) with an engineering degree in III-nitride semiconductors.

Dr. Frank Chang

CTO, Source Photonics
Frank Chang is an expert in photonic IC technologies, optics transceivers, and optical networking. He is currently corporate CTO of Source Photonics. Previously he served as a senior principal engineer and director for optics interconnect within the CTO Optics Office at Inphi Corporation for over 5.5 years after 12 years of service at Vitesse Semiconductors. In addition, he also held various project and management positions with Cisco/Pirelli, and JDS Uniphase, working on the design, development, and commercialization of fiber optics components. Frank recently published the industry first DCI book entitled “Datacenter Connectivity Technologies: Principles and Practice” in 2018. He is a frequent conference speaker, co-authored 100+ regular journal and conference papers/book chapters, and has served in ECOC and OFC technical committees for several years in a row. Frank was the president and now among the board and advisors at Photonic Society of Chinese-Americans (PSC) as well as IPEC. He is the Industry Forum & Exhibition (IF&E) Chair for Globecom 2015 in San Diego, Globecom 2019 in Hawaii and ICC 2024 in Denver with IEEE Communication Society. Frank obtained his Ph.D degree in Optoelectronics from the Ecole Polytechnique, University of Montreal, Canada for his research thesis on ultrafast optical generation of 1550nm tunable solid-state lasers. Besides Frank is IEEE and Optica/OSA Fellow.

Opening Talk (5 min)

Panel Presentation (90 min)

Charles Shao, General Partner, TSV Capital (15 min)
Dr. Reza Khorasaninejad, Founder & CEO, LEADOPTIK (15 min)
Dr. Steve Fu, Partner, Celesta Capital (15 min)
Marcus Yang, Founder & CEO, SiPhi (15 min)
Albert Zhang, Founder & CEO, SiLith (15 min)
Dr. Martin Vallo, Senior Market and Technology Analyst, Yole Group (15 min)

Panel Discussion (30 min)

PSC closing remark (5 min)

Photonics Society of Chinese Heritage (PSC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promote friendships and collaborations among Chinese American engineers and scientists in the field of photonics so that they can enhance their professional and business contributions for better quality of life in this fast changing world.