Amir Nayyerhabibi co-founded Cortina Systems in June 2001 with the
vision of building the next great semiconductor company, focused on
removing infrastructure bottlenecks and delivering efficient
bandwidth across the network. As President, CEO and Board of
Directors member, Amir enabled Cortina's stellar growth by raising
over $200M in equity financing and acquiring four companies. In
2004, Cortina acquired Azanda Network Devices, a fabless
semiconductor company in the traffic management domain, recognized
as one of the "Startups to Watch" by the Fabless Semiconductor
Association in 2002. In 2006, Cortina acquired Intel's Optical
Networking Division, and kick-started an industry consolidation
that is now underway. In 2007 and 2008, Cortina entered the passive
optical networking market through the acquisition of Immenstar, and
the digital home market through the acquisition of Storm
Semiconductor.
Prior to Cortina Amir and his co-founding team engaged in creating
a boutique semiconductor fund call SFO ventures that led to
creation of Cortina. While at Cisco Systems, Amir was senior
director of engineering in charge of the GSR12000, Cisco's flagship
router His team delivered the most powerful router platform in the
industry. While at Cisco, he also helped to build Auroranetics,
founded on investment from Raza Ventures and Kodiak Ventures.
Amir has been a serial entrepreneur. His first company, StratumOne,
founded in 1998, was funded by two venture rounds from Sequoia, IVP
and Brentwood. At StratumOne, Amir built and managed the
engineering team. He also acted as COO until just before the
company's acquisition by Cisco Systems in 1999.
Before StratumOne, Amir held senior executive positions in three
companies developing state- of-the- art microprocessors: Silicon
Graphics (which acquired MIPS Computer Systems), MIPS, and Intel
Corporation.
At Silicon Graphics (1992 - 1997), Amir's team was responsible for
multiple CPU developments, including the R4400, R8000 and R10000.
At MIPS Computer Systems, Amir held various executive roles as one
of the early developers of the R4000 processor which was the
foundation of MIPS' successful IPO in 1991.
At Intel Corporation (1982 -1989), where Amir began his career, he
was one of the key developers of microprocessors that defined
Intel's successful entry into the PC market. He was part of the
teams which developed the 80286, 80386 and managed the 80486
microprocessors.
Mr. Nayyerhabibi holds a Master of Science Degree in Information
and Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois.