Peter Vanbekbergen

Partner - imec.xpand
Peter Vanbekbergen received his engineering degree in 1987 and his PhD degree in 1993 from the University of Leuven. From 1987 to 1993 he was a researcher at imec. In 1993, he joined the advanced technology group at Synopsys, a leading EDA provider in Silicon Valley. In 1997, Peter became director of engineering at CoWare, an imec start-up focusing on system level EDA tools, headquartered in Silicon Valley and later acquired by Synopsys. In 2003 Peter returned to imec as  associate VP of the system level division at imec. In 2007 Peter co-founded M4S, another imec spin-off focusing on cellular RF transceivers. This company was acquired by Huawei/HiSilicon in 2010 and continued to develop RF technology for the Huawei smartphone-line. Peter joined imec again as innovation manager, responsible for the venture process at imec, targeting the creation of imec spin-offs. In that context Peter co-founded imec.xpand, a fund investing in imec spin-offs and startups linking to imec technology.  He also has served as interim-CEO of Spectricity, an imec spin-off targeting novel optical sensors.