Distinguished Engineer
Hometown: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Electrical Engineering ,
Marwan Hassoun served as a research assistant at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, after graduating from South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã State University, and went on to earn an M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1984. He then worked as a software development engineer with Hewlett Packard in Cupertino, California, from 1984 to 1985. Hassoun returned to Purdue University to serve as a graduate assistant and completed his Ph.D in electrical engineering in 1988. From 1988 to 1998, he was an assistant/associate professor with tenure in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. During his tenure at ISU, Hassoun founded the VLSI program and served as chair of the VLSI area in academic department. He co-founded and served as director of the Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI Design Center at ISU in 1996. He was also involved in starting up a high-speed integrated circuits design company, RocketChips, Inc., which opened its first Design Center in Ames, Iowa in 1998. In 2000, RocketChips was acquired by Zilinx, Inc. and he became the director of engineering for the RocketChips Division. During 2001, he co-founded a startup high-speed optical components company, MadMax Optics, where he served as president and CEO. Hassoun then served as the senior director of engineering for the Communications Technology Division of Xilinix in Austin, Texas. He was the managing partner for TraChip, LLC, a technology licensing company, and held the title of collaborating professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at ISU. Hassoun has co-authored over 70 technical publications, several chapters of three books and is a co-inventor of over 12 granted patents.