User:Mikewwarner

November 9, 2012

Biography for Mike Warner

I was born in Spokane Washington on March 22nd 1940. Moved to Oregon in 1941 and grew up in Warrenton, Hammond and Astoria. At the end of my junior year I moved to Redlands California and graduated from high school in 1958. In 1959 I married Laurie Nephew from Astoria, Oregon and we graduated from San Bernardino Valley Union Junior College in 1962.

I graduated from San Jose State University in 1965 with a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering determined to make a difference in the world and to provide for my family.

The first 29 years of my career was involved in the design, development and manufacturing of hard disk drives. I was very fortunate to work for IBM during the formative years of disk drive technology and was able to make technical and business contributions during a nineteen year IBM career. The invention of a magnetic head with integrated three rail air bearing that became known as the “Winchester Head” was the highlight of my technical career at IBM. The highlight of my business career at IBM was being the Product Manager for IBM’s high performance disk drives with business responsibilities for over five billion dollars in product revenue and managing an organization of more than 650 people. I received many awards from IBM including “Outstanding Contribution” and “Outstnading Invention” awards

Seeing the wave of the future I moved from IBM to participate in the shrinking of hard disk drives from the refrigerator size drives to the 5.25”, 3.5”, 2.5”, 1.8” and smaller form factors. I worked as VP of Engineering for Micropolis, Maxtor and Toshiba America. I also founded Orca Technology a disk drive company that did not survive. I look with pride at the 29 years spent in an industry that has enabled low cost, miniaturized, mass storage for today’s electronic devices. I have many friends, fond memories and five patents to remind me of these times

While searching for means to miniaturize the electronics to accompany the shrinking head/disk/actuator assemblies, a door opened to a new technology in “Chip Scale Packaging”. I accepted an offer to work for Tessera to help promote the use of μBGA (micro Ball Grid Array) technology. For the next 12 years the challenge of miniaturizing electronics that would be use in handheld devices, medical implants, military applications, disk drives and many consumer products became my calling at Tessera Technologies. As a VP I traveled the world explaining the technology, designing and solving problems of miniaturization for multiple applications and designing solutions that were prototyped in San Jose. With the unique customer perspective in mind I directed our engineering and manufacturing teams towards solutions that enabled visionary products. The outstanding reliability and ruggedness of the μBGA semiconductor package was recognized by the industry. The success of the μBGA lead to many forms of chip scale packages being developed based on the μBGA technology. Design rules and manufacturing processes were developed by Tessera for the various forms of μBGA packages.

By this strange set of circumstances I was privileged to participate in a second technological revolution that also has had a tremendous impact on our world. The age of miniaturization of electronic devices had arrived with the commercialization of “Chip Scale Packages”. The most common products are the hand held phones, recorders, cameras, games, etc that we now take for granted in our daily lives. Nearly all of the major semiconductor and semiconductor packaging companies have been licensed by Tessera to use this technology. Twenty patents in this technology bear my name. In 2010 I shared the SEMI North American Award for work relating to the introduction of chip scale packaging to the semiconductor industry.

Participating in these two technological evolutions has been technically and personally very rewarding.

Five years after retiring I have become involved in a start up internet company as the Chief Operating Officer.

Laurie and I have been married for fifty-three years and have three daughters. I have visited 50 countries of the world (many of these through work). We are currently retired but are very active in the community and with our hobbies and interests.

PATENTS: Five Patents relating to disk drive technology Twenty patents relating to semiconductor packaging one patent pending

GENERAL: A high energy, enthusiastic team player with a can-do attitude. A frequent speaker at industry events on a variety of technical and business subjects.

EDUCATION BS Mechanical Engineering, San Jose State University, 1965. Many subsequent courses and seminars on business, technical and management subjects. Contributing author to book on advanced semiconductor packaging technologies.

COMMUNITY Chairman of Board of San Jose Jazz

     Volunteer for Computer History Museum

Very active supporter of Institute of Contemporary Art, Opera San Jose and San Jose Repertory Theatre Volunteer HOBBIES Sailing, photography, travel, scuba diving, automobiles, home remodeling, reading, hi-fi, art collecting, Koi, volunteering

FAMILY Married (53 years) Three daughters-Elizabeth, Emily, Suzanne