Omid Tahernia

As a member of the Xilinx executive management team, Tahernia will lead the DSP Division's technology and business strategy to broaden the reach of Xilinx FPGAs into a $2 billion signal processing segment currently not served by DSP processors. This segment has traditionally been the domain of ASICs and ASSPs, but now represents a tremendous opportunity for Xilinx with FPGAs being used as co-processors along with traditional DSPs. Tahernia will be responsible for developing next-generation Xilinx DSP solutions, including the intellectual property, software tools and design methodologies that allow DSP designers to leverage the high performance-price advantages of Xilinx FPGAs. His charter will also include building strategic alliances with industry leaders to further strengthen the company's robust solutions. Tahernia, 44, joins Xilinx from Motorola where he served in a variety of leadership positions in the semiconductor and equipment segments for the past 21 years. His recent assignments at Motorola Semiconductor included vice president and general manager of the Wireless and Mobile Systems Division driving chipset platforms including baseband processors and vice president and director of worldwide strategy and business development for the Wireless group. Previously, Tahernia held various management positions in Motorola's Paging Division. Tahernia holds a master's degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.