Board of directors
Dr. Staffan Gustafsson, CEODr. Gustafsson received his Ph.D. in Device Physics and Integrated Circuit design from Linköping University in 1987. In parallel with the Ph.D. studies he founded, together with Dr. Sundblad, Sicon Semiconductor AB in 1983, a company pioneering full custom IC contract design. He held several senior management positions as well as he served as a director in Sicon Semiconductor AB during 1983 to 2008. He took an active role in selling the Sicon to Leitch Technology Corporation in 1997 as well as he participated in the MBO of Sicon Semiconductor AB in 2002. Staffan has participated in several start ups and he had a leading role in the raise of totally 250 MSEK from the VC market to convert Sicon Semiconductor into a consumer standard product company. He holds several patents and patent applications. In his role as a founder and CEO of Cognicatus he uses his wide cooperate experience to build the company.
Dr. Rolf Sundblad, VP Marketing & SalesDr. Sundblad received his Ph.D. in Integrated Circuit Design and Semiconductor Physics from Linköping University in 1987. He cofounded Sicon Semiconductor AB in 1983 where he acted as CEO for from 1983 to 2005. After having an active role in the raise of totally 250 MSEK to Sicon he took the role of VP R&D which he held from 2005 to 2008. Rolf has more than 25 years experience in the semiconductor research and industry. Rolf established, during this period, a large network in the world wide semiconductor society, with companies like Amkor, UMC, Cirrus Logic, Maxim, Cypress and Gennum. He has had technical lead in more than 100 ASIC/SoC projects and holds several patents and patent applications. In his role as a founder and VP Market and Sales of Cognicatus he uses his wide technical market and sales experience to build the company.
Dr. J Jacob Wikner,Dr. Wikner has more than 12 years of experience in mixed-signal IC design and implementation. His experience is mostly in the high-speed digital-to-analog converters with telecommunication infrastructure as target application, such as ADSL, WLAN, and WCDMA. He has been 10 years in industry, and 4 years in academia. Wikner was technical leader for DAC R&D projects at Ericsson and technical leader for AFE projects at Sicon Semiconductor. He has a profound experience in circuit-level design and simulation, high-level modeling and simulation of chips and circuit components. He has also deep experienced in tool integration and configuration of simulation environments. He has taped-out and evaluated around 20 different full chip designs. Dr. Wikner holds a Ph.D. in Electronics Systems, Linköping University, Sweden.
Dr. Claes Nylander, Business consultantDr. Nylander received his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Linköping University in 1983, with a focus on sensors and biological receptors. In parallel with studies towards an MBA he served as lecturer in Semiconductor Physics and Solid State Physics, and participated in numerous biosensor research projects with universities and international enterprises. He also co-founded Sensistor Technologies, a company set up to commercialize hydrogen sensitive FET devices. Before taking the role as Marketing Director at Sensistor, and later its CEO for 12 years, he held the position as Senior Scientist at Unilever Research in the UK. In 2006 the company was sold to Alcatel Vacuum Technology and renamed to Adixen Scandiavia where Claes held the position up till Dec. 2008 as CEO with responsibility for sales of Alcatel’s portfolio of advanced vacuum technology products to the Scandinavian market. Claes Nylander is now helping scientists and entrepreneurs in identifying new business opportunities, and to bring innovations, from the laboratory out to the international markets. His role in Cognicatus is to brings a balanced background of marketing, technical proficiency, and project management as well as a solid track record for winning sales and building equity.