Cavendish Kinetics Management Team
Dennis Yost, President and CEO
Dennis Yost joined Cavendish Kinetics in 2007 as CEO, after serving a year on the company’s Board of Directors. Before joining Cavendish Kinetics, Mr. Yost was Vice President and General Manager of the CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) business unit at Novellus Systems Inc. Before that, he was Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Lightpath Technologies, and General Manager and Managing Director at Applied Materials Corp. Earlier, he held various engineering management and engineering positions with Texas Instruments Corp. (TI), including engineering manager in the Digital Light Products Components group. He also worked as a process engineer for Intel Corp. Mr. Yost holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.
Richard Knipe, Ph.D., VP of Engineering and CTO
Richard Knipe jointed Cavendish Kinetics in 2007 as VP of Engineering and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), following a 22-year career at Texas Instruments. Dr. Knipe began at TI as a structural analyst, moving up in 1991 to R&D Manager for the company’s Digital Micromirror Devices division. In 1995 he became Technology Development Manager at TI, responsible for bringing the very successful Digital Light Processing (DLP) technology from qualification to $800 million revenue. He and Jeff Sampsell, Ed Nelson, and Larry Hornbeck, Ph.D., were co-winners of PC Magazine’s Best New Technology for the development of the DLP product. Dr. Knipe spent his last five years at TI as business manager for the DLP Optical Networking and Digital Sensor groups. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Oklahoma State University and master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. He holds more than 30 MEMS-related patents.
Patrick Murray, CFO
Patrick Murray joined Cavendish Kinetics in 2011, bringing a wealth of financial management knowledge and more than 25 years of experience in finance for high-tech companies. Most recently, Mr. Murray served as CFO of Serious Energy, Inc., a privately held, venture-backed provider of software services and advanced building products, addressing energy efficiency in the built environment. He previously served as CFO of WhereNet Corp., a leading provider of real-time location solutions, and Director of Finance for Maxim Integrated Products, a provider of integrated analog and mixed-signal semiconductors. He was also a Senior Manager at Ernst & Young LLP, where he serviced global high-tech manufacturing and computer software companies. Mr. Murray received a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Washington State University.
Charles Smith, Ph.D., Founder & Chief Scientific Officer
Charles Smith founded Cavendish Kinetics Ltd. in 1994. In addition to serving as the company’s Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Smith also is a Professor at Cambridge University (UK), where he is a member of the Semiconductor Physics group at the Cavendish Laboratory. His research at Cambridge focuses on fabricating state-of-the-art sub-micron semiconductor devices – including the development of techniques for investigating the quantum properties of nanodevices in a non-invasive manner, as well as investigating the combination of micro-mechanical devices working at RF frequencies with single electron charging. Dr. Smith holds more than 15 patents and has published more than 150 papers.
Atul Shingal, Executive Vice President of Operations
Atul Shingal joined CK in 2011 with more than 30 years of international operations, engineering, quality management, and IT experience. Throughout his extensive career, he has been instrumental in shaping large multinationals as well as startups, including scaling revenues from annual rate rates of $30 million to $500 million; leading the integration of operations of acquired companies; and playing important roles in three very successful IPOs. Before joining Cavendish Kinetics, he was Vice President of Operations at Inphi, a high-speed analog semiconductor company; Vice President of Operations and IT at SiRF Technology; and Vice President of Operations for Globespan Virata. Before that, he held management positions with Virata Corp., Cypress Semiconductor, National Semiconductor, and the Tata Group of Companies in India. Mr. Shingal earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Government Engineering College, India; a master’s degree in electrical engineering from San Jose [California] State University; and an MBA from Pune University, India.
Paul Tornatta, Vice President of Product and Customer Engineering
Mr. Tornatta has more than 25 years of experience the aerospace, wireless, telecommunications and automotive industries. Before joining Cavendish, he served as CTO of Skycross, a leading mobile antenna supplier. Prior to Skycross he served as vice president of the automotive business unit at Radiall Corp., a leading supplier of RF interconnect products. He also served in a variety of leadership positions at Larsen Antenna Technologies, Metricom, and Lockheed Martin. Mr. Tornatta earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from New Mexico State University. He has written articles on RF design and electromagnetics for a variety of RF trade publications. He is a member of IEEE.
Larry Morrell, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Business Development
Larry Morrell joined Cavendish Kinetics in 2009 from Impinj, where he was Vice President and General Manager of the IP Products Division. The division created and licensed AEON nonvolatile memory (NVM) IP for semiconductor companies; Impinj’s NVM IP business was later purchased by Virage Logic. Earlier, Mr. Morrell directed marketing for Cypress’ Computer Products Division, which launched the USB and programmable clock product lines. Prior to Cypress, he was Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for Data I/O Corporation, and he also held various engineering and marketing positions at Seattle Silicon and The Boeing Company. Mr. Morrell has a bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and languages from New Mexico State University.
Lewis Boore, Vice President of Sales
Lew Boore brings to Cavendish Kinetics more than 24 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, predominantly in wireless communications. Before joining Cavendish, Mr. Boore served as Vice President of Marketing & Sales for WiSpry. His previous professional experience includes numerous management and executive positions in product development, sales, strategic business development, and marketing in wireless semiconductors with HP, MEMEC, u-Nav, and NemeriX. He has also developed markets, partnerships, and sales opportunities in Asia, EMEA, and the Americas from inception to greater than $250 million (USD). Mr. Boore has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from USMA at West Point.
