Here’s your feel-good story of the week.
A top engineer from Irvine-based Broadcom Corp. handed out awards and honors at the 30th annual Irvine Unified School District Science Fair this month.
Medhi Hatamian, vice president of engineering for digital signal processor microelectronics at the chipmaker, got a chance to chat with student scientists.
Hatamian, a self-described “kid at heart,” also raffled off a nifty toy—a remote control helicopter that works indoors. Hatamian builds large-scale ones in his free time.
“I really enjoy interacting with the younger generation and getting involved in their projects,” he said. “Hopeully, I inspired some of them.”
The Broadcom Foundation gives money to keep the fair running. This is the foundation’s second year sponsoring the event.
It involved students from sixth grade through high school seniors and saw nearly 400 submissions this year.
Chief Executive Scott McGregor—who has said he was spurred on to study engineering after participating in school science fairs—sent the winners a letter addressed to the “scientists and engineers of the future.”
“Your career will grow out of a personal passion you may develop in middle or high school,” McGregor wrote in the letter. “We hope …when you look back in 10 years or so, that you will remember this day as one that put on you your personal path to an exciting and fulfilling career.”
Broadcom’s support of the fair is part of its foundation’s broader effort to support what’s called STEM education, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math.
Hatamian began his career working for NASA’s space shuttle program in the 1980s.
In 1982, he joined Bell Laboratories, then part of AT&T Inc. He joined Broadcom in 1996.
Hatamian is named on some 80 patents.
A few weeks ago, he visited Fountain Valley high school kids who were working together to build a helicopter out of paper and wood.
“It’s really joyful,” Hatamian said.
In other Broadcom news, the company is rumored to be in talks to buy Israeli chip startup Provigent Ltd.
Provigent, which has its U.S. headquarters in Santa Clara, could go for $300 million to $400 million, according to a report on Israeli tech news website Globes.
Provigent makes chips for broadband networks that help wireless carriers cut down on costs.
The company, which had been prepping for an initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange, has been in talks with Broadcom “for months,” according to the report.
Broadcom has bought some seven Israeli companies to date.
Broadcom’s chips go into computers, TV set-top boxes, cell phones and consumer electronics.
Director Desai
QLogic Corp.’s Executive Chairman and former chief executive H.K. Desai took up a new board seat this month.
He’s set to become a director of Applied Micro Circuits Corp. in Sunnyvale.
Desai stepped down late last year as chief executive of QLogic, an Aliso Viejo-based maker of electronics for data storage networks. He’s doing a slow handoff to handpicked successor Simon Biddiscombe.
Desai’s “wealth of experience in the networking industry, his in-depth knowledge of state-of-the-art technologies and business acumen will be invaluable as a guiding influence for the company’s strategic direction,” said Cesar Cesaratto, Applied Micro’s chairman.
Desai is QLogic’s formative chief executive, having run the company for 15 years since its early days as a spinoff of rival Emulex Corp. of Costa Mesa.
Bits and Pieces
Santa Ana’s Ingram Micro Inc., the top distributor of technology products, recently inked a deal with Los Angeles-based Mukii Technology Inc. Ingram is set to distribute Mukii’s disk drive enclosures, docking stations, adapters, notebook coolers, desktop cases and power supplies. Financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed … Irvine’s Toshiba America Business Solutions Inc., part of Japan’s Toshiba Corp., was recognized for its customer service with the MarketTools Achievement in Customer Excellence award. This is the fourth time that the unit, which makes fax machines, printers and other office gear, has won the award since MarketTools started the program in 2005 … Search kingpin Google Inc. is looking to woo video game developers. The company announced a game development toolkit for the creation of Web-based, casual games, which are seen as the fastest-growing sector in the video game industry.
