Munich, Germany – March 16^th, 2021 – Codasip, the leading supplier of customizable RISC‑V processor IP, announced that semiconductor industry veteran Dr Ron Black has joined Codasip as Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.

As Executive Chairman, Ron will work closely with the Codasip senior leadership team, board, and investors to support the company in further developing and executing its strategic vision. At a time of disruptive change when traditional boundaries between MCU, DSP, GPU, TPU and application processors are eroding in favour of heterogeneous computing, Codasip has a great opportunity to deliver domain-specific solutions. Many new processor applications require special-purpose accelerators for algorithms in areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, graphics, security, and functional safety.

“With its combination of processor design automation technology and the opportunities of the RISC-V open ISA, Codasip is uniquely placed to address emerging new markets,” said Dr Black. “I am looking forward to working with Codasip on its strategy for expansion and growth.”

“We are delighted that Ron is joining the Codasip Board of Directors,” said Dr Karel Masařík, CEO and Founder of Codasip. “He brings decades of experience from leading businesses in the semiconductor industry including companies specializing in licensing processor IP.”

Dr Black has over 30 years industry experience. He has been most recently President and CEO at Imagination Technologies and previously CEO at Rambus, MobiWire, UPEK, and Wavecom.

He holds a BS and MS in Engineering and a PhD in Materials science from Cornell University. A consistent thread of his career has been processors including PowerPC at IBM, network processors at Freescale, security processors at Rambus, and GPUs at Imagination.