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About Pharrowtech

High speed wireless, everywhere.

Pharrowtech spun out of imec, the world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, in 2018 and is led by an executive team with extensive experience in the telecommunications and semiconductor industries. Leveraging deep technical expertise in chip, antenna and algorithm, Pharrowtech is at the very forefront of mmWave technology design and development. With recent successes, new partnerships and successful funding rounds, the business is growing at a fast pace.

Pharrowtech's innovative wireless platforms simplify and accelerate the adoption of mmWave technology.

Pharrowtech designs and develops mmWave radio frequency (RF) technology for next-generation wireless applications. Products include RFIC semiconductors, phased antenna arrays and software solutions. Pharrowtech’s leading solutions serve fast growing markets including broadband 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), consumer electronic (CE) products such as virtual reality (VR) headsets and TVs, as well as smart city applications.

Pharrowtech currently ships the PTR1060, the world’s first IEEE 802.11ay-compliant fully integrated CMOS beamforming transceiver chip that supports the entire 57 to 71 GHz band. Pharrowtech also offers the PTM1060 phased array antenna module, which includes the PTR1060. When combined with Renesas’ RWM6050 or RWM6051 baseband processors, it offers OEMs and ODMs ready-to-integrate or ready-to-deploy 60GHz solution. System manufacturers are also able to customize the RFM according to their own specifications, thanks to Pharrowtech’s phased antenna array design, integration and testing capabilities.

Our Core Values

We think Customer first

We put our customers at the center of our decision-making and adapt to their needs and requirements.

We are One team

We are a diverse team with different viewpoints, we trust and support each other and speak with one voice.

We are Respectful yet confident

We all have something valuable to learn from each other. We share openly, debate respectfully, and once a decision is made, commit fully.

We passionately strive for Excellence

Expertise drives our choices. We are reliable, transparent, and accountable for our results.

Belgium Office

Our Leuven office is located in the Ubicenter building on the “Philipssite”. It’s centrally located, next to the ring of Leuven and walking distance from the city center and station. The E-40 highway is 5 minutes away and there are multiple bus lines that stop at the Phillipssite.

UK Office

Our UK office is located in Winnersh Triangle Park, Reading, 30 miles west from London and walking distance from the Winnersh Triangle train station.

 

Leadership Team

Wim Van Thillo

Wim Van Thillo

CEO & co-founder

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Carl De Ranter

Carl De Ranter

Co-founder & VP Engineering, Radio Systems & SW

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Kees Steenbergen

Kees Steenbergen

VP Operations

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Filip Polus

Filip Polus

CFO

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Micky Mehta

Micky Mehta

VP Engineering, Digital Systems and SW

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Claudia Bastian

Claudia Bastian

VP Human Resources

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Christian Plante

Christian Plante

VP Sales

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Wim Van Thillo

Wim Van Thillo

CEO & co-founder

Wim founded Pharrowtech in 2019 and leads it since then. He has more than 15 years of experience focused on mmWave R&D, first as a researcher and later as a program director for imec’s activities in cellular, WiFi and mmWave transceivers. In that role, he was essential in shaping the R&D roadmap and business opportunities for emerging wireless technologies. Wim was also a visiting researcher at UC Berkeley, focused on researching 60GHz high speed wireless communications. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and a degree in Business Economics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

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Carl De Ranter

Carl De Ranter

Co-founder & VP Engineering, Radio Systems & SW

Carl co-founded Pharrowtech and brings more than 23 years of experience in analog RFIC design and management, and a passion to engage people in innovation, with a focus on consumer electronics. He began his career at RF Magic, an early phase RFIC Startup in San Diego, CA, where he became design manager and helped build the start-up ahead of its merger and IPO. In 2013 he returned to Belgium to join design services house AnSem (now part of Cyient) where he architected NFC and RFID ASICs for pre-IPO customers. Since 2015, Carl has consulted for a tier-1 smartphone chip supplier where he built the team that subsequently developed a significant RFIC IP which is now utilized in many of the world’s most popular mobile phones. Carl holds a MSc in Electrical Engineering and a PhD, both from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

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Kees Steenbergen

Kees Steenbergen

VP Operations

Kees leads Pharrowtech’s Operations and Manufacturing activities. He combines 25 years of industry experience in semiconductor and telecommunication, covering various technical and managerial roles in start-ups and large multi-nationals. Through his career he has focused on network architecture and chip design, followed by leading product development and quality initiatives to enable mass manufacturing. Prior to its acquisition by Qorvo, he led GreenPeak’s operations from scratch towards company profitability in a highly competitive and cost-sensitive market, through multiple consecutive years of exponential growth, and shipping over 100M devices. Kees holds a MSc in Applied Physics and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.

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Filip Polus

Filip Polus

CFO

Filip is responsible for Finance & Risk at Pharrowtech. Prior to joining Pharrowtech, Filip acted as international Corporate Finance advisor for multiple companies in Semicon, Pharma, Financial services, Fintech and was involved in several deeptech startups in Asia and Europe. As an expert in M&A and strategic thinker he advises companies in their growth and expansion path and is well connected with investment partners to support their financial needs. Filip holds a bachelor degree in Accounting and Tax law and a Master in Finance from EMS Brussels.

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Micky Mehta

Micky Mehta

VP Engineering, Digital Systems and SW

Micky is responsible for Wireless Architecture at Pharrowtech and leads the Digital System and Software group.  Prior to joining Pharrowtech, Micky was CEO of Celestia UK and before then co-founder and VP of Modem at Blu Wireless.  Over the past 25 years, Micky has managed several large technical programmes in Silicon and System design, developing products based on 3GPP, 802.11 and 802.16 standards; often with changing commercial priorities and financial constraints.  He is an expert in PHY and MAC layer topics – with specialities in Radio Communications, Digital Signal Processing, Detection Theory, Stochastic Signal Processing, Control Theory, CDMA and OFDM.  Micky is entrepreneurial by nature and enjoys the thrill of building and working in start-ups.  He has a PhD from University of Southampton and is a Senior Member of the IEEE (SMIEEE).

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Claudia Bastian

Claudia Bastian

VP Human Resources

Claudia drives the strategy and process of building, developing, and engaging an exceptional team to achieve Pharrowtech’s mission.  She brings an extensive experience in international Human Resources, most recently as HR Lead for EMEA and APAC at OneSpan. Prior to that, she held various International HR Business Partnership roles at DellEMC. Claudia holds a BA in History and a Masters’ degree in Communication Studies from the Université Catholique de Louvain.

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Christian Plante

Christian Plante

VP Sales

Christian is responsible for building Pharrowtech’s presence in North America. Prior to joining Pharrowtech, he was Vice-President of Engineering at Hortau. In his 25+ year career in high-technology, Christian has led marketing and engineering teams at companies in Silicon Valley and Canada, including Broadcom, Altera, Actel and Tabula. Christian has an MBA from Queen’s University and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Université Laval in Canada.

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Technical Leadership Team

Khaled Khalaf

Khaled Khalaf

Co-founder & Member of Technical Staff

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Qixian Shi

Qixian Shi

Co-founder & Member of Technical Staff

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Khaled Khalaf

Khaled Khalaf

Co-founder & Member of Technical Staff

Khaled is a specialist in system and IC design for mm-wave wireless applications with more than 10 years of experience in mm-wave CMOS IC design R&D. As chip architect, Khaled led the development of imec’s latest generations of 60 GHz phased-array transceivers. He holds a MSc degree from TU Delft and a PhD from VUB in collaboration with imec. He worked with Scenario Design Services and spent 2 years at Infineon Technologies.

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Qixian Shi

Qixian Shi

Co-founder & Member of Technical Staff

Qixian is an expert RF designer with over 8 years of experience in mm-wave frequency synthesis and distribution for wireless transceivers and automotive applications. He was a key contributor to the first standard compliant 60 GHz transceiver prototype in imec and has been responsible for several projects with top-class industry partners. He is passionate about transferring research results into commercial products. Qixian holds an MSc degree from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and a PhD degree with highest honor from Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

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Pieter Vorenkamp

Independent Chairman of the Board

Pieter is a Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Syntiant Corp. Previously, he worked at Cadence Design Systems, where he was Senior Vice President and General Manager of the IP Group. Before that, he spent nearly 20 years in leadership at Broadcom with roles including Senior Vice President of Operations Engineering, responsibile for world-wide manufacturing technology and hardware programs from inception through to high-volume production. During his time at Broadcom, he was also Vice President and Chief Architect, Central Engineering, developing core IP for use throughout the company. Pieter started his career as a research scientist at Philips Research, developing high-speed data-converters. He holds a MSc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Twente in The Netherlands, and is the named inventor of more than 125-issued U.S and European patents.

John LeMoncheck

Strategic Advisor

John has been a leader of companies and business units for more than 30 years across a wide variety of industries including semiconductor, materials, and human interface devices. He has served as CEO for a variety of companies including the 60GHz wireless technology company SiBEAM, electronics materials company Cambrios, and contactless connector company Keyssa. Earlier in his career, John was vice president of the Consumer Electronics BU for Silicon Image, where he led the company's successful launch and commercialization of the HDMI standard.  He was VP Engineering and a member of the founding team of Arithmos, an early pioneer in flat panel display interface chips.  John received his BSEE from the University of California, San Diego and did graduate research work in Computation and Neural Systems at Caltech under Carver Mead.

Investors

Imec.xpand is an early stage and growth venture capital fund with a game-changing approach to turn hardware driven nanotechnology innovation into successful global companies. The fund is independently managed by a team of entrepreneurs, seasoned venture capitalists and business experts and is targeting ambitious tech start-ups that meet all the criteria to become a successful, scalable venture with the potential to change the world.

Bloc Ventures, founded by industry veterans from ARM and Vodafone, is an investment company which targets early stage ‘deep’ technology companies, working with them closely to build world leaders. Structured to identify and build on compelling investment opportunities, Bloc’s collaborative approach creates long term value and mitigates risk for investors.

 

The KBC Focus Fund is a € 50 million venture capital fund that focuses on deeptech. The fund has the ambition to boost the sector of nanotechnology, microelectronics and IoT. It mainly focuses on Belgium and surrounding countries where well-known expertise centers in this technological area are located.

Innovation Industries is a Deeptech venture capital investor that invests in Hightech, Agri&Foodtech and Medtech businesses. Today, Innovation Industries manages over €275M across two funds and has a team of 15 investment professionals. Its largest investors are the Dutch pension funds PME and PMT. Innovation Industries invests from seed to late-stage and has partnerships with all Dutch technical universities and research institute TNO.

Partners