Wally Rhines

Early life and education

Rhines was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, Frederick N. Rhines, was the Alcoa professor of light metals at the Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1946-1959 and founder of the department of materials science and engineering at the University of Florida, from which he retired in 1978; today the department is housed in Frederick N. Rhines Hall. Rhines earned his bachelor of science in engineering (BSE) from the University of Michigan in 1968 and his master’s degree and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Stanford University in 1970 and 1972, respectively. He earned his M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University in 1975.

Career

While at Stanford, Rhines co-invented the magnesium-doped gallium nitride blue light-emitting diode, for which he, Herb Maruska and David Stevenson were awarded a U.S. patent in 1974. Isamu Akasaki built directly on this gallium-nitride research and eventually won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, along with Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura.

Rhines worked at Texas Instruments (TI) from 1972 to 1993, serving as executive vice president of the semiconductor group and president of the data systems group. While at TI, Rhines led the group that developed the TMS9900, used in the 99/4 series of PCs, the world's first 16-bit home computers. He also supervised development of speech synthesis chips used in the Speak & Spell; developed the first publicly available computer program (for a calculator) to calculate the Black-Scholes value of a stock option; and supervised the creation of the TMS320 digital signal processor. In a 1985 profile of Rhines in the Austin American-Statesman, industry consultant Will Strauss told reporter Russell Mitchell: "He [Rhines] can claim the TMS-320 digital signal processor chip; that's the one to beat on the street right now." By 1990, TI's share of the worldwide market for general purpose DSPs was approximately 60%. A January 1991 article in Electronic Business Buyer reported that "[s]ources say that TI has the only profitable general purpose DSP operation in the world."

Rhines became CEO of Mentor Graphics in 1993, when the company's annual revenue was about $340 million. The company passed $1 billion in revenue for the first time in 2011. In 2013 Mentor Graphics announced it would begin paying a quarterly dividend, making it the only of big three electronic design automation (EDA) companies to do so; (Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys are the other two). Rhines has led the company into new business areas, including providing software for the auto industry; of the big three EDA companies, analyst Tom Diffely said "Mentor has the most going on in these adjacent markets...I think (the auto industry) is going to be a long-term huge market for them."

Affiliations

Rhines has been elected five times (1996, 2002, 2004, 2008, 2010) to serve two-year terms as chair of the Electronic Design Automation Consortium, the international trade association for the EDA industry. He is a board member of TriQuint Semiconductor (1995–2015), QORVO (2015–present) and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (2002–present). Previously he has served on the boards of Cirrus Logic (1995–2009), the Global Semiconductor Alliance (2007–2010), Global Logic Inc. (2014–present) and the Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers Association, now known as the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (1984–1987). From 1996-2005 Rhines was a trustee at Lewis & Clark College, where he remains a life trustee today.

Awards and honors

Noted publications

Books

Rhines is listed as a source in books about the evolving semiconductor industry.

Philanthropy

In memory of his father, Rhines endowed the Frederick N. Rhines Professorship at the University of Florida in 2007. He serves on the board of Classic Wines Auction in Portland, which supports a variety of children and family charities.