Atul Sharan
President and CEO

Atul Sharan is a 20-year veteran of the semiconductor industry with experience in manufacturing and design automation as an engineer, manager, entrepreneur and senior executive.

Prior to co-founding Clear Shape, Atul served as vice president of marketing and business development at Synopsys, Inc. leading company DFM strategy and direction following the acquisition of Numerical Technologies. Prior to Synopsys, Atul served as Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Numerical Technologies, Inc., where he was instrumental in establishing key strategic partnerships and in growing the business from the pre-revenue stage through its highly successful initial public offering in April 2000 and through its eventual acquisition by Synopsys, Inc.

Prior to Numerical, Atul was in charge of partnerships and business development at Ambit Design Systems (now part of Cadence Design Systems, Inc.). Earlier, Atul held senior management positions at Compass Design Automation, VLSI Technologies and Integrated Device Technology (IDT). As General Manager, India Operations, Atul established Compass' first software development center in India and helped initiate IDT's first overseas manufacturing plant in Penang, Malaysia. Atul has an MBA from University of California, Berkeley, an M.S. in Engineering from The University of Texas and a B. Tech Degree in Engineering from IIT, India.

Yao-Ting Wang. Ph.D.
CTO and Chairman Consulting Professor,
Stanford University

Dr. Yao-Ting Wang is a co-founder. He has extensive technology expertise in the fields of lithography, lithography simulation and its impact on the EDA design flow.

In 1995, Dr. Yao-Ting Wang co-founded Numerical Technologies, Inc. to develop technology and products that address fundamental problems that resulted from ever-decreasing feature sizes falling below the wavelength of light source used in the lithography systems. As CTO and Sr. VP of Engineering, Yao-Ting set the technical vision for the company's product portfolio. He was responsible for numerous innovations (48 patents granted and 74 pending) including the invention and adoption of alternating phase-shifting technology in the industry. In April of 2000, he helped take the company public, and was later instrumental and active in company operations during its acquisition by Synopsys, Inc.

Yao-Ting received his Ph.D. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and his B.S. in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University. His doctoral research focused on applications of system theory and signal processing algorithms to manufacturing, and his dissertation pioneered work in the field of fast lithography simulation techniques and alternating phase-shifting technology for IC manufacturing.

Fang-Cheng Chang, Ph.D.
Vice President of Engineering - Process Technology & Engineering Operations

Fang-Cheng Chang has a track record of leading successful next-generation design teams working on challenging EDA solutions.

Immediately before co-founding Clear Shape, Fang was a senior director Director of the engineering team developing next-generation physical verification at Cadence Design Systems. Prior to Cadence, Fang served as a senior director of engineering at Synopsys, where he led the company's equipment integration engineering efforts. Fang served as Director of R&D at Synopsys, where he led the company's DFM equipment integration engineering effort. Before the acquisition by Synopsys, Fang was a Vice President of Engineering and critical early team member at Numerical Technologies. As Numerical's first key R&D addition, He he led early development efforts that spanned the company's entire product lines and was a substantial contributor to the company's patent portfolio.

Fang received his PhD and M.S. in electrical engineering with a focus emphasis in optics and semiconductor lithography techniques from Stanford University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from U.C. San Diego. He holds and has published over 30 combined patents and technical papers numerous patents and has published over 30 technical papers in the field of optical lithography, simulation and resolution enhancement.

Philippe Hurat, Ph.D.
Senior Marketing Director

Philippe has over 15 years of experience in the semiconductor and EDA industries in a broad range of technical and marketing roles.

Before joining Clear Shape, he held key positions at Synopsys where he was responsible for marketing the DFM and TCAD product lines. Prior to Synopsys, Philippe held various technical marketing, strategic marketing, product marketing and applications engineering positions at Numerical Technologies, Cadabra Design Automation and Compass Design Automation. Philippe started his career as a design engineer at VLSI Technologies.

Philippe holds a PhD in Microelectronics from INPG, National Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France, and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Joseph Fourier in Grenoble, France. Philippe has authored or co-authored numerous technical papers and patents related to design for manufacturing and physical design optimization.

Nishath K. Verghese
Vice President of Engineering - Design Technology

Nishath has a strong track record of architecting and delivering extremely complex EDA products.

As a key technologist at Cadence Design Systems, he led the engineering of Cadence's timing library characterization, delay calculation products and noise analysis core engines. He successfully integrated worldwide engineering teams and efforts from three acquisitions to create a solid multimillion dollar business. Prior to its acquisition by Cadence, Nishath served as a software architect and principal of CadMOS Design Technology. Previously, he was Chief Technologist at Apres Technologies, which was acquired by CadMOS.

Nishath holds a PhD and an M.S. in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India.

Nishath's doctoral work focused on extraction and simulation techniques for coupled noise in mixed signal chips. Nishath holds multiple patents in the areas of timing analysis, power variation and crosstalk. He has co-authored and presented more than 30 conference papers, journal articles and invited seminars and written 2 books on the topics of signal integrity and noise.