Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based CTO’ operating in the Semiconductor space. If you think a CTO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Simon Knowles
CTO & Founder of Graphcore
Vice President Strategy & DXP® Technology and Founder Simon is responsible for Icera’s corporate strategy and product roadmap. For the first 7 years of Icera’s evolution Simon served as Vice President Silicon Engineering, delivering Icera’s first two generations of cellular chipsets. Simon is the architect of Icera’s unique DXP® processor technology and continues to direct the evolution of DXP® architecture. He is a member of the Board of Directors and a founder of the company. Prior to Icera, Simon co-founded ADSL chip company Element 14, where he served as Vice President Silicon. Element 14 was acquired by Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM) for $640M in 2000. Simon established Element 14’s design centre in Bristol, UK, and was responsible for the development of Element 14’s digital chips. Simon co-architected the FirePath processor which today enables Broadcom’s unique soft DSL modem technology. Prior to Element 14, Simon led the custom processor design group of STMicroelectronics (NASDAQ: STM), formerly the design team of processor pioneer Inmos in Bristol, UK. Simon started his career at the UK’s Defence Electronics Research Agency, after graduating from Cambridge University with a degree in Electrical Science.
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About Graphcore, Icera: Graphcore develops a microprocessor designed for AI and machine learning applications.
Henk Muller
CTO of XMOS
Henk used to be a Reader at the University of Bristol prior to joining XMOS. At Bristol he was involved in research and teaching of Computer Architecture, Compilers, Ubiquitous Computing, and Wearable computing. Prior to that, they worked at the University of Amsterdam, with a secondment at Philips Research Labs where he participated in the construction of a massively parallel Object-Oriented machine. He holds a doctorate of the University of Amsterdam, specialising in Computer Architecture.
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About XMOS: A deep tech company at the leading edge of the AIoT, putting intelligence, connectivity & enhanced computation at the core of smart products
Ray McConnell
Founder/CTO of Blu Wireless
Ray brings over 25 years of experience with high performance, low power parallel processor technology. Starting his career with INMOS, he went on to found his first in a series of startups, Division plc, 20 years ago. At his second startup, Ray architected a multi-threaded graphics GP-GPU processor and has developed low-power, scaled heterogeneous maths accelerator SoCs and large imaging supercomputers. He has extensive knowledge of heterogeneous acceleration, compilers and software architectures and their applicability to the ‘difficult’ processing challenges in gigabit signal processing. He brings a broad range entrepreneurial startup experience, taking Division, PixelFusion and Clearspeed to IPO. Ray has 26 US and UK patents granted or filed and holds a computer science and cybernetics degree from the University of Kent.
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About Blu Wireless: Blu Wireless Technology is a silicon IP company developing wireless technology with a faster transmission rate.
Dennis Xenos
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer of Flexciton
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About Entrepreneur First, Flexciton: Flexciton is an optimisation technology company solving complex scheduling problems in semiconductor wafer fabrication
Ben Jensen
Founder and CTO of Surrey NanoSystems
Ben’s background is in the development of novel reactors used in Nanomaterials growth. Prior to founding SNS he was responsible for developing new technologies used in the hard disk drive industry and in sputter processing. He leads technical development of Vantablack coatings, and is involved with commercial engagement in new technology sectors from defence to luxury goods. Personally, I’m an explorer, creative thinker and solver of problems at the nano and commercial scale. Someone with serious commercial sense and a great ability to develop new business and close deals, especially in a start-up environment where competition and gaining traction are tough.
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About Surrey NanoSystems: Surrey NanoSystems manufactures nanoscale materials for use in engineering and product applications.
Chris Travis
CTO of Trameto
Chris Travis has held CTO positions with several technology start-ups, the most recent of which, Redux, was recently sold to Google. Throughout his career, Chris has focused on low power technologies and brings a wealth of experience in optimizing the performance of low power systems. Chris has an engineering BA and MA from the University of Cambridge.
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About Trameto: Trameto is developing energy management devices for micro energy harvesting technologies enabling the elimination of batteries in the IoT.
Rob Maunder
Founder and CTO of AccelerComm
Prof Rob Maunder is the Founder and CTO of AccelerComm.
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About AccelerComm: AccelerComm is a semiconductor IP-core company specialising in channel coding solutions.
