News: Microelectronics
15 June 2021
Odyssey’s advisory board gains Cornell professor Khurram Afridi
Odyssey Semiconductor Technologies Inc of Ithaca, NY, USA, which is developing high-voltage power switching components based on proprietary gallium nitride (GaN) processing technology, has added professor Khurram Afridi to its board of advisors.
Afridi is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University, where he conducts research in power electronics and energy systems incorporating power electronic controls. Afridi's team of engineers at Cornell has been studying many applications of GaN devices, including the concept of On-the-Go Charging for electric transportation.
“Professor Afridi is one of the country's top experts on power electronics,” comments Odyssey’s chairman & CEO Alex Behfar. “Customers of our GaN-based vertical-conduction devices are focused on enabling higher-efficiency, lower-weight and smaller-size power electronic systems,” he adds. “As a member of our advisory board, professor Afridi will help our team focus on specific device configurations for customers in power system applications such as electric vehicles (EVs) and solar energy.”
Afridi holds multiple degrees, including a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. He was previously the chief operating officer and chief technology officer of Techlogix and has worked for JPL, Lutron, Philips, and Schlumberger. He is an associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics. He received numerous awards for his work, most recently the 2016 National Science Foundation CAREER Award from NSF.
Odyssey has also reported a strong first half of the year. The firm announced in April it had raised $5m (1.25 million shares at $4 per share) in a common stock private placement to further fund the development and production of high-voltage vertically conducting GaN power-switching devices. Odyssey has developed new GaN processing technology to produce high-voltage power switching devices that, it claims, can break down long-standing performance barriers for high-power and high-voltage applications such as EVs, solar energy, power grids and industrial motors.
In 2020, Odyssey began trading on the OTCQB Venture Market under ticker ODII and is focused on the premium power switching device market (applications where silicon-based systems perform insufficiently), which is projected to exceed $3.5bn by 2025.
Odyssey raises $5m to produce vertically conducting GaN devices
Odyssey names former MACOM executive Alex Behfar as executive chairman & acting CEO
Odyssey acquires fab to allow small-scale production over 10,000 wafers/year
