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Rob graduated with a BSEE from UC Berkeley and an MSEE
from San Jose State University. Rob worked at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory
and Ford Aerospace as a digital systems design engineer in the sixties. He
held a variety of engineering positions at Fairchild Semiconductor in the
early seventies, most notably as manager of Micromosaic Engineering,
Fairchild's ASIC pioneering effort. In the late seventies Rob switched gears
and was manager of Intel's Marketing Communications. In 1981, he joined Wilf
Corrigan and two others to found LSI Logic Corporation, an ASIC design and
manufacturing startup, as VP of Engineering. Since 1992 he has worked as a
consultant to a number of high tech startups.
Rob holds two patents and has authored over 30 articles and technical
papers. He has taught classes on ASIC engineering and management principles.
In 1992 his book, Silicon Destiny was
published. It details the history of ASIC, LSI Logic Corporation, and variety
of ASIC pioneers.
In 1995 he began producing a series of video taped interviews with
semiconductor innovators. The series, known as Silicon Genesis, is produced in cooperation with
Stanford Libraries; the on going project has featured Gordon Moore, Ted
Hoff, Federico Faggin, Les Hogan, Regis McKenna and others. Rob
spoke about his Oral History project when he was featured on the
television program Nextstep, which aired
on Nov 30, 2000".
In October 1997 Rob and Susan Ayers-Walker
joined forces to form Walker Research Associates, a high tech consulting firm
specializing in marketing and business development for emerging technology
startup companies.
Rob and his wife Susan use industry media to
present points of view, for example the services they provide (Time to ditch the old development
recipe, EE Times) or the new reality (Time to classify Intel as a computer company, Electronic
Buyers News) and Silicon Valley History as seen on NextStep or just for
fun (Nerds rule at High School Reunion, San Jose
Mercury News.
Rob's consulting focus includes product positioning and promotion,
engineering management, and startup financing.
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