SPEAKER

GLENN VANDEVOORDE

Glenn Vandevoorde

Glenn Vandevoorde

CEO, arQana Technologies

Glenn Vandevoorde serves as Chief Executive Officer of arQana Technologies, a fabless semiconductor company in Singapore that develops RF solutions for mmwave radar, satellite communications and telco infrastructure.  He also acts as Chief Innovation Officer of the Synesys Group of companies, the holding entity of arQana Technologies.

Glenn has 20 years experience in bringing high technology companies from concept to early revenues. Before joining arQana, Glenn was A/Prof at the National University Singapore as head of its Enterprise Development Lab. Prior to this, Glenn held the position of CEO at Future Waves Taiwan, a fabless RFCMOS design house for digital tuners and was CEO of KOTO Enterprises Vietnam, a social enterprise providing holistic training to disadvantaged youth. Glenn holds a Masters in Microelectronics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven MICAS, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

 

Topic: 5G: Building The Infrastructure That Will Accelerate The Global Economic Recovery

There is one clear technology driver that will be one of the engines of the recovery post-2020, and this is 5G. While the semiconductor industry has been certainly impacted by disruptions in market demand, supply chain, and workforce, 5G planned roadmaps and investments remain highly visible and stay as a national priority for many countries, with China and US at the forefront of a mainstream adoption.

Communications infrastructure has become an essential utility that has enabled people and businesses to continue working despite lockdowns. Greater bandwidth demand, a growing online presence, digitalization of businesses and implementation of IoT machines require therefore a necessary upgrade and replacement of the infrastructure, with the deployment of a massive amount of new hardware. But only who had already started its digital transformation journey, together with new entrepreneurial ventures that have imagined new business models with specific applications and use cases, will fully benefit from the advantages of 5G with ultra-high speeds and low latencies.

Within the crescent macroeconomic and political tensions in the world, the Singapore Semiconductor Industry is well-positioned to overcome the challenges and become a relevant player of the 5G ecosystem with its deep tech skills, its neutrality and its agility. Together with a strong government support, and together with strong key partnerships with suppliers and research institutes, Singaporean Semiconductor SMEs can thrive and be at the center of the construction of the 5G infrastructure that will enable an economic recovery.

In this session, we will see likely cases of usage of 5G applications that will change our lives and businesses, and we will go through the driving requirements for semiconductor companies to build the new 5G infrastructure, with a spotlight on components for Sub-6 GHz and mmWave infrastructures.