We’re Innovators Focused on Ultra-Fast Wireless Communication
LUMEOVA is solving tomorrow’s connectivity challenges today with high-performance optical wireless technology. Headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., the Company develops innovative photonics modules to meet the growing data communication demands of consumer electronics and wireless infrastructure markets. With optical technology that can boost wireless data to multi-gigabit speeds, LUMEOVA is helping redefine communication solutions for the next-generation Mobile & PC connectivity, VR & Gaming, AI & Data Center and 5G/6G backhaul.
Our team
Ali Khatibzadeh
Founder & CEO
Ali has had a successful track record in the wireless communications and semiconductor industries. After completing his undergraduate and graduate education at North Carolina State University with a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, he joined Texas Instruments (TI). He led the development and launch of TI’s Silicon transceiver products as part of their 2G cellular chipset solutions which were shipped in high volume to global GSM mobile phone customers. He later joined Ericsson US Mobile Phone group in 1998 as Director of Technology and led the chipset and antenna development teams for Ericsson’s 2G/2.5G (TDMA/EDGE) mobile phones for US, Canada and Latin America markets. In 2000 he joined Anadigics as VP of RF/Wireless Business Segment in the development and marketing of radio front-end module solutions for 3G and 4G phones. During his tenure at Anadigics, the RF cellular products business grew from about $20M to $170M with annual unit volumes reaching over 200 million units per year. He joined as President and CEO of TranSwitch, a company developing VoIP & network processor solutions for mobile networks. During his career he has seen the accelerating growth in mobile data communication demand and the challenges of traditional radio wireless solutions to meet this ever increasing demand. In 2014, he followed his passion and founded LUMEOVA to develop ultra-fast, wireless optical communication solutions to harness the vast, available optical spectrum for 10X increase in wireless data rates.
Peter Rabbeni
Chief Business Officer
Peter has extensive experience in the wireless communications and semiconductor industries with a successful track record of driving revenue and profit growth in both established and emerging companies. In his most recent role, Peter served as the Senior Vice President of the Communications Infrastructure and Security Business Unit at IQE PLC, where he led the development of the company’s wireless and power semiconductor strategy. Prior to IQE, he held several senior management and executive roles at IBM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES where he helped propel RF silicon-on-insulator (RFSOI) as the leading RF front-end technology of choice for mobile handsets and today ships in majority of all smartphones worldwide. While at GLOBALFOUNDRIES, he supported the M&A activities that culminated in the acquisition of IBM Microelectronics Foundry business and grew the annual revenue of this unit from $600 million to over $1 billion in 3 years, with a particular focus on diversifying the customer base and help drive profitability. Peter is passionate about the global opportunities for WiRays® and photonics communications market and looks forward to leading the revenue growth for LUMEOVA.
Bill Croughwell
Chief Architect
Bill has a true systems view of combined hardware and software, including Bluetooth, and 2G through 5G. After graduating from the University of Connecticut with an Electrical Engineering Degree, he continued with a Masters at North Carolina State University. His career has spanned 40 years of embedded processing, software, communications systems architecture. He has helped to create new wireless systems from scratch and understands how to make optimal tradeoffs to to optimize system performance. Prior to LUMEOVA, he has worked at GE Communications developing ASICs, Ericsson as a manager and semiconductor systems leader for Bluetooth, 2G, 3G, and 4G LTE, and RIM/Blackberry as a system designer for 4G-5G mobile phones. He also spent time working on various IoT and communications projects at Device Solutions. His experience in wireless protocols, semiconductor design, and software interactions has been key to WiRays development.
Charley Wilson
Director of Engineering
Charley is an electrical engineer with a BS, Masters, and PhD from NC State University with a background developing wireless integrated circuits and systems. In addition to his fluency in semiconductor design and test, he also has deep understanding of software ecosystems and toolsets. He leads the LUMEOVA engineering team in designing high-speed wireless and optical connectivity systems to develop innovative and impactful technologies. Charley understands how to design to enable high-volume manufacturing and test ability by working closely with vendors.
Johnny Shepherd
Vp Product & Strategy
Johnny has spent most of his career in the wireless communications and semiconductor-related industries. After finishing his degree in Electrical Engineering at North Carolina State University, he started working with Ericsson wireless base station and systems development to define and commercialize 2G and 3G wireless transceivers. After transitioning in 2002 to the mobile chipset division, he actively engaged in multiple roles – system design, project management, product management, and customer engagement from the system architect level to C-level. During this time, a joint-venture with STMicroelectronics allowed detailed exposure to embedded application processors and other communications such as Bluetooth, WiFi, and USB.
Arunesh Goswami
OptoElectronics Expert
Dr. Goswami is the Photonics device expert at LUMEOVA. He leads the development of ultra-fast photonic devices and works on the integration of photonics and electronics into LUMEOVA products. Dr. Goswami holds a number of patents on devices and materials implementation of WiRays® modules. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering with emphasis on compound semiconductor devices from North Carolina State University.
Advisory Board
Bami Bastani
Chairman of Advisory Board
Dr. Bami Bastani currently serves as the chairman of the board at Sivers Semiconductor AB, and Board member at IQE PLC. Bami’s distinguished career spans over 42 years in semiconductor industry and over 20 years in serving on public and private company Boards. Bami retired from GlobalFoundries in March 2023 where he served as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Mobile and Wireless Infrastructure Business Unit, and Senior Advisor to the CEO.
Prior to joining GF, Bami was President, CEO and board member of three NASDAQ listed public companies; Meru Networks, Trident Microsystems, and ANADIGICS, Inc. Earlier in his career he served in senior executive roles at Fujitsu Microelectronics and National Semiconductor. He started his career at Intel Corporation, Portland Technology Development (PTD). Bami is co-inventor of 3 patents. He holds a PhD and MSEE in Microelectronics from The Ohio State University and BSEE from University of Arkansas. He has been the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from both institutions.
Brian A Floyd
Advisor
Brian A. Floyd received the B.S. degree with highest honors, the M. Eng., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL in 1996, 1998, and 2001, respectively. From 2001 to 2009, he worked at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, NY as a research staff member and then as manager of the wireless circuits and systems group. There, he and his colleagues demonstrated some of the world’s first 60 GHz radios and phased arrays in silicon. In 2010, he joined North Carolina State University, Raleigh, where he is currently the Alton and Mildred Lancaster Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He directs the Integrated Circuits and Systems lab at NC State (iNcs2), where his team has introduced new approaches to phased-array transceivers, software-defined radios, tunable filters, test and calibration of arrays, and sensing systems. He has authored or co-authored over 130 technical papers and has over 32 issued patents. Dr. Floyd has received a variety of awards, including the NC State Innovator of the Year in 2023, NC State University Faculty Scholar in 2020, and NC State Outstanding Teacher Award in 2016. He was the General Chair of the IEEE RFIC Symposium in 2021 and continues to serve on leadership roles for the IEEE.
Alexander McCann
Advisor
Alexander McCann has over 30 years of executive leadership, global operations, and manufacturing experience in the semiconductor industry. He was previously employed as Senior VP of Global Operations at Dialog Semiconductor PLC, where he was a member of the Executive team that successfully executed the $6B acquisition by Renesas Electronics Inc in 2021. He has also served as the Chief Operating Officer at Linear Technology Corporation, prior to the $14B trade sale to Analog Devices in 2017 and VP of Operations at Anadigics inc.
Mr McCann is currently a Semiconductor Partner at Alexa Capital, a company specialized in M&A, Capital Advisory and strategy development for the Semiconductor market. Mr McCann is also the President at Fortan Advisors, a company focused on improving organizational efficiency and supply chain robustness in the Semiconductor ecosystem, and an Independent Director at Probe Test Solutions UK Ltd , a company focused on building state of the art probe and test hardware solutions for the semiconductor market.
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