ECE Seminar - From Academic to Entrepreneurial, from Semiconductor in China to Life-science Globally - Telling the Evolution Story of a Deep-tech Start-up
Abstract: Thin-film transistor (TFT) has been widely used in display area (TVs, mobile phones, laptops) as a fundamental building block for active-matrix driving due to its advantages of large-area and low-cost. While the screens become cheaper and cheaper, the abundant TFT manufacturing recourses (mainly in China) make the TFT-based applications beyond-display possible. LinkZill is working towards the industrialization of TFTs for beyond-display applications, including novel-optoelectronics (such as perovskite X-ray) and life-science (high-throughput DNA synthesis), and hopefully can become the game changer in the field. In this talk, apart from technical side, the speaker will try to tell a story about some of his important thinking during the transformation from academic to entrepreneurial, and how to build an international team covering a variety of domains including semiconductor, materials, electronic engineering, life science, et al. step by step, for the brave adventure of cross-disciplinary industrialization
Dr. Linrun Feng received his bachelor’s degree in Optoelectronics from Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) in 2010, and Ph.D. degree in Electronic Science and Technology from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Prof. Xiaojun Guo’s group) in 2016. From Mar. of 2015 to Mar. of 2016, he was a visiting Ph.D. student in University of Cambridge (Prof. Arokia Nathan’s group). During 2016 to 2018, he held the position of Vice President Asia of NeuDrive Limited (UK). In Jan. of 2019, he came back to China and founded LinkZill, which headquarters in Hangzhou with a subsidiary in UK. For the past five years, he has led LinkZill to grow up to a successful startup company with 50 employees (7 PhDs among them), and so far has raised about $12 million from top VCs including Supergravity Capital (十维资本), ZhenFund (真格基金) and Apricot Capital (杏泽资本). He has co-authored more than 40 SCI paper, more than 40 patents. He is very active with global reputation in both industry and academia in the areas of thin-film electronics and life-science.