About Us

Empower Semiconductor was founded to solve fundamental problems in power delivery for data-intensive applications.

Traditional power solutions require dozens of discrete components with big footprints, complex designs and deliver power inefficiently with poor response times and inaccuracies. 

Empower’s patented IVR technology integrates dozens of components into a single IC increasing efficiency, shrinking footprints by 3x and delivering power with unprecedented simplicity, speed & accuracy and with zero discrete components. 

This IVR technology addresses a $10B opportunity with a wide range of applications including mobile, 5G, AI and data centers.  The company is based in San Jose, CA and is led by a team of highly experienced power experts and executives. 

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Tim Phillips

Chief Executive Officer & President, Founder

Tim Phillips has an impressive track record of delivering profitable results while building innovative power management businesses over his 25-year career in the semiconductor industry. In prior roles with the company, Tim has served as Chief Operating Officer and as SVP Sales & Marketing since founding Empower in 2014. In prior roles, Tim served as VP of North America for Infineon, where he was responsible for more than $600M in annual sales. Previously, Tim founded the Enterprise Power BU at International Rectifier where he served as VP & General Manager, growing the business to more than $150M in annual revenue. Tim earned both his MBA and BSEE from the University of Rhode Island. He holds 18 US patents with several others pending.

Trey Roessig

Chief Technology Officer & SVP Engineering

Trey Roessig brings over 20 years of experience and 25 US patents in power and mixed-signal design to the Empower Semiconductor engineering team. In his role as CTO & SVP Engineering, Trey manages a team of analog, digital, power, and system architects. In prior roles, he has served in both technology and business roles in companies of various sizes, from Co-Founder at Integrated Micro Instruments (acquired by Analog Devices) to Director of Engineering at Volterra Semiconductor to General Manager of ADI’s Power Management business unit. He has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Mechanical Engineering / Controls & Dynamic Systems.

Peter Huang

Chief Manufacturing Officer

Peter Huang brings over 25 years of experience in operations and technology development to Empower as SVP of Operations. In prior roles, Peter has served as VP, Operations at Innovium, VP Field Technical Support & Marketing at TSMC and as Technical Director of Advance Process Development & Product Engineering at Broadcom. Peter also held operations and technology management positions at LSI/Augusta and Conexant. Peter holds 10+ patents and earned his Ph.D., M.S. and B.S in Engineering all from UC Berkeley

Kurt Redfield

Chief Financial Officer

Kurt Redfield serves as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Empower. He has over 25 years of financial management experience and has served as CFO/COO with a number of global high-tech firms. These firms include Libre Wireless (India), Plextek (UK), Simfy (Germany), BridgeCo (Switzerland), Neartek (France) and represent $300+ million in venture funding Kurt raised with investors such as Benchmark, Advent, Wellington, Accel, Earlybird, ETF, Fidelity, WTI and Samsung. Mr. Redfield holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BA in Philosophy from St. John’s College.

Gene Sheridan

Executive Chairman, Founder

Gene Sheridan brings over 30 years of experience in power management & semiconductors. Gene is currently the CEO of Navitas Semiconductor, the industry’s first and only GaN Power IC company. In prior roles, Gene was CEO of the VC-backed IC start-up, BridgeCo, capturing 80% market share in the wireless audio market, achieving extraordinary revenue & profit growth, and completing the eventual sale of the company to SMSC. Prior to BridgeCo, Gene was VP & GM at International Rectifier where he managed a $600M/yr business unit serving the consumer, mobile and enterprise markets. At IRF, Gene held several positions that spanned engineering, manufacturing, sales & marketing, and was responsible for the creation of a $70M/yr start-up. Gene holds a BSEE from Clarkson University.

David Lidsky, PhD

Strategic & Technical Advisor, Founder

David Lidsky has over 20 years of power management experience and more than 35 US patents. Previously David served as CTO & SVP Engineering at Empower. Prior to founding Empower, David was co-founder and VP of Engineering at Volterra Semiconductor. At Volterra, David managed product development for the most successful power start-up in the past 20 years, through the company’s IPO and eventual sale to Maxim for $600M.  David holds both an MS degree and a PhD in IC Design from UC Berkeley.

High-speed designs use digital components with very fast edge rates in their output signals which can be subjected to significant distortion and degradation creating high bit-error-rates and lower data throughput.  Insertion and reflection losses, crosstalk and impedance mismatch, are all factors, amongst others, influencing the integrity of a transmitted signal.

Empower’s E-CAP silicon capacitors provide wide bandwidth low impedance highly stable decoupling capacitors capable of being placed close and even integrated into an SoC substrate.

Empower Semiconductor is developing power management solutions enabling full unrestricted speed and performance of the latest xPUs.

  • High power density
  • High bandwidth conversion
  • Low power distribution losses
  • Vertical Power

The ability to process data and perform complex calculations at high speeds has been intensified in recent years by leaps in technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3-D imaging and autonomous driving. These technologies have exacerbated the need for faster and more complex processors and architectures.

Equipment designed to operate within a high magnetic field environment can experience power failures or abnormal operating conditions due to the force the magnetic field imposes on ferromagnetic material-based electronics.

Moreover, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices can record false or distorted images due to the inferences from such electronics. Empower’s IVRs regulators use non-ferromagnetic air-core inductors ideal for operating in harsh magnetic environments.

Data being communicated and processed around the globe is rapidly growing, driving the need for a new generation of faster data processing components and elements in data centers and datacom equipment.

Empower Semiconductor offers novel fully integrated power management solutions that both increase performance and solve the power density challenge of space-constrained data-intensive applications.

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System-on-Modules (SOMs) and Computer-on-Modules (CoMs) provide all components of an embedded processing system (processors, communication interfaces, memory blocks, power management, etc.) on a single production-ready printed circuit board (PCB). This modular approach makes them ideal for embedding into a variety of end systems and applications. Empower’s IVRs provide high-density configurable multi-rails regulators enabling rapid and flexible prototyping.

Chiplet architectures are rapidly gaining popularity over monolithic designs in developing complex SoCs. While providing increased performance, design flexibility and upgradability, they do, however, require more complex power management and PCB routing.

Empower’s IVRs can be integrated as an additional chiplet into an SoC increasing the power delivery efficiency and simplifying PCB routing.