Tohru Furuyama

Tohru Furuyama has over 40 years of experience in the semiconductor and electronics industry. Tohru began their career in 1979 as a Group Manager and Lead Engineer at the Semiconductor Device Engineering Laboratory of Toshiba Corp. During their time there, they drove the joint development of the world's first e-DRAM LSI with SGI for its "Indigo-II" workstation, as well as the joint development of the Rambus DRAM with Rambus Inc. In 1994, they moved to Toshiba America Electronics Corp. and served as a Manager for the 64M DRAM joint project between Toshiba, IBM, and Siemens. Tohru then moved back to Toshiba Corp. in 1996, where they served as a Senior Manager for a department for Multimedia oriented SoCs with about 50 engineers. In 2002, they were promoted to General Manager of the Center for Semiconductor Research and Development, where they managed the R&D organization of more than 400 engineers and over $100M/yr R&D budget. In 2009, they were promoted again to General Manager of the Corporate Technology Planning Division, where they defined technology portfolios, roadmaps, and R&D directions for Toshiba Group, allocated R&D budgets, and drove the corporate mid-term plan from a technology aspect. In 2011, Tohru Furuyama moved to Intermolecular Japan K.K. as General Manager and President, where they were responsible for new business development, customer management, and technical marketing in the electronics industry. In 2017, they moved to Flex Logix Technologies, Inc. as Director, Japan, where they were responsible for new business development, customer management, and technical marketing in Japan and Korea, mostly for semiconductor system LSI chip and system manufacturers. That same year, they also moved to Ilika plc as Senior Director, Japan, where they were responsible for new business development, customer management, and technical marketing in Japan and Korea, working with a variety of customers such as car manufacturers, heavy industries, IoT related electronics companies, and battery related companies. In 2018, they moved to Carlit Holdings Co., Ltd. as a Special Advisor. Most recently, in 2019, they moved to Beneq as an Executive Advisor, where they are responsible for new business development, customer management, and technical marketing in semiconductor and non-semiconductor areas in Japan.

Tohru Furuyama received their BS in Physics from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo in 1975. Tohru then went on to receive their MS in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, NY in 1984. Finally, they received their PhD in Information Science from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo in 1988.