Shom Ponoth

Shom Ponoth is the current Chief Hardware Officer at Merlyn Mind. Prior to this, Ponoth worked as a Master Engineer for Development Foundry Engineering at Broadcom Limited from July 2013 to April 2018. In this role, Ponoth was responsible for foundry management for TSMC, with expertise in FinFET nodes, and played key roles in helping Broadcom transition from Planar to FinFET technologies. Ponoth also led the company's 16nm technologies, and had experience with multiple test-chips and products with regard to driving foundry towards bring-up, failure root cause identification, performance, power and yield improvement.

Ponoth's previous experience includes working as a Senior Engineer for FEOL integration at IBM Microelectronics from January 2003 to June 2013. In this role, Ponoth was responsible for process integration of Self aligned Contact MEOL for 10nm bulk FinFET device technology platform, including defining technical strategy and leading unit process, integration, failure analysis and device team members with setup of new modules, yield and performance improvement. Ponoth also led in the process setup of gate last flow for 14nm SOI FinFET technology, and was responsible for process development of Extremely Thin Silicon-on-Insulator (ETSOI aka FDSOI) for 28 - 14nm nodes. Other experience includes working with foundry partners and suppliers.

Shom Ponoth reports to Satya Nitta, Founder & CEO. They work with Hélène Alonso - Chief Design Officer, Sharad C. Sundararajan - Co-Founder & Chief Software Officer, and Gus Schmedlen - President & Chief Revenue Officer.