How did you get into electronics/engineering and when did you start?

I am an engineer and entrepreneur at heart and my whole life has been about making and building things, in both my professional and my private life. I can’t say exactly what it was that led me to become an electronics engineer; maybe my father being an electrician and my older sister being an electronics engineer influenced my decision.

Can you tell us about your work history/journey to becoming the President and CEO of Energy Micro?

After earning my MSEE in microelectronics, I started my professional career as a researcher at SINTEF, a large multi-technology research institution. There I was a part of a group doing advanced mixed signal IC design for a variety of applications including radiation sensors, high temperature ICs for oil well instrumentation and highly integrated radio ICs. In 1996, after four years at SINTEF, two colleagues and I started Chipcon.

Can you tell us about your work as co-founder, president and CEO of Chipcon?

When we started Chipcon in 1996 I think it was a little bit by chance that I became the CEO. In the beginning we were all basically doing the same things, and it wasn’t until a few years later that I adopted more of a leadership role. I began to enjoy the leadership and strategic aspects of my job more and more, which I believe is a key reason why I kept developing in that position and remained as the CEO until and after Chipcon was acquired by Texas Instruments 10 years later.

How were you able to develop it into the market leader in low-power RF solutions only a decade after its founding in 1996?

It actually only took between six and seven years. During the first three to four years we only did consultancy services and custom ASIC projects. We slowly started restructuring the business from ASIC to RF ICs in 1999, and by 2003 this transition was complete. By 2005 we had already become the market leader. I think the one single reason why we were able to achieve this was our speed of innovation. Compared to our competitors, we brought newer, better products to market significantly faster. We were able to maintain this high speed of innovation because the company had very clear vision, direction and goals which created an energetic atmosphere within a group of people who really wanted to succeed.

What were your personal and professional goals after selling Chipcon to Texas Instruments in 2006?

At the time I think my only goal was to successfully integrate Chipcon into Texas Instruments. Looking back, I think the first six months after selling Chipcon were the busiest of my life. That period of time was very hard, both physically and mentally. It was physically difficult due to the long hours and extensive travelling, and mentally difficult because many of the processes and cultural elements that made Chipcon what it was could not continue unchanged within a much larger company like TI. I have to give a lot of credit to TI for how well it did integrating Chipcon, and how well it manages its business overall. The way the company treats its people is also an example to be followed.

Once I started to get my head above water I began to think about the future. Should I remain within TI (which was not a bad alternative) or should I do something else? I think it was at this time that I realized that I really am an entrepreneur at heart and I love being the underdog and fighting to become the world leader in a particular industry. The only way to put myself into such a position again was to start from scratch once more.

I resigned from TI without knowing much more than the fact that I wanted to start a new adventure. It took me another eight months before the idea of Energy Micro became a reality.

The most important thing we can do to maintain and strengthen the leading position we have is to continue to be the most innovative company in our industry.

What have been some of your strengths that have helped you get to where you are today?

First of all, I have a lot of weaknesses. But I do have a few key strengths that make me a good entrepreneur: I believe I am a visionary who is very persistent. These two qualities allow me to set clear direction and goals and then do what it takes to get there.

Do you have any tricks up your sleeve?

I would refer to my previous answer. Very few companies (either start-up or mature) have well defined visions and goals. If you do not know where you want to go, how on earth can you get there? A company with a clear idea of its goals has the best recipe for a great future. Energy Micro’s 2020 goal is to reach one billion dollars in revenue. This is 100 times more than we have today.

Do you continue to maintain an active role in product development? If so, how?

I was a decent analog IC designer many years ago, but I am too rusty now to really contribute anymore. But with regard to the overall product roadmap and product strategy, I continue to contribute very strongly.

Can you tell us more about Energy Micro and the technology it is developing?

The original mission of Energy Micro when the company was founded in 2007 was to make the world’s most energy efficient microcontrollers based on 32-bit ARM technology. There were (and still are) three industry trends that all indicated that this could be a very successful mission: 1) More and more applications are becoming battery-operated, which requires better low-energy solutions. 2) Electronic products are continuously becoming more advanced, which effectively moves applications from 8 and 16-bit architectures to 32-bit architectures. 3) Unlike before, software development costs today dominate electronic product development. Customers therefore prefer standardized ARM architectures over proprietary architectures because the software code can be reused to a higher degree.

During the first two years we brought to market the first family of EFM32 energy-friendly microcontrollers which consume one fourth as much energy as any other 8, 16 and 32 bit microcontrollers. Today we provide 180 different EFM32 variants divided into five main families of products, and we are winning more than one new customer every day, which affirms our 2007 assumptions.

Has the company changed since it was established in 2007?

Chipcon had a very good company culture, which I believe was essential for what the company achieved. Therefore, when Energy Micro was founded I was obsessed with the idea that we needed to create a fantastic company culture. After about half a year, and with around 15 people recruited, I asked myself the question, “How can I describe the culture of Energy Micro, and is it actually fantastic?” I found I couldn’t really answer the question. I have since acknowledged that a culture is not something that you can establish right from the start. The culture is, rather, the result of a group of people working together to achieve common goals, and all the shared pride that accumulates during the journey. This will and should continuously change the company.

How can Energy Micro continue to be a leading company in the future?

The most important thing we can do to maintain and strengthen the leading position we have is to continue to be the most innovative company in our industry. The companies that over time manage to stay in front will always have the best chance to be tomorrow’s winner.

Can you tell us about some of the new technologies Energy Micro is working on in the radio industry?

As well as our microcontrollers, we also started to develop the world’s most energy-friendly radios (EFR) two years ago. The background to this decision was simply that most low-energy microcontroller applications also need some kind of radio solution; and thanks to the Chipcon experience, we already had a tremendous insight into the RF chip industry. When EFRs come to market next year it will reduce the energy consumption of RF ICs by at least a factor of four compared to any other solutions available today. It will at the same time support a large number of frequency bands and a large number of different radio protocols, including BLE, ZigBee, IEEE 802.15.4 and many more.

What challenges do you foresee in our industry?

The semiconductor industry is of enormous value to society. Think how much service and productivity a Smartphone provides, and yet you can buy it for a few hundred bucks. The portion of this that ends up as revenue to the semiconductor companies is just a fraction, despite the enormous R&D costs associated with developing the chips involved. Our industry is suffering from the fact that despite such huge investments in R&D, the margins remain moderate to low. This fact is the underlying reason why so many big semiconductor companies are struggling and why so few VCs today are investing in start-ups in the sector. The positive flip side of this is of course that great companies that are able to continue to invest heavily in new innovation will hopefully have an even brighter future.

What are your next goals? Where do you hope to be in the near future?

My focus is completely on making Energy Micro a very successful venture and I do not spend much time on anything else. However, there is one thing that I am pretty sure of and that is that I will not start another company. When Energy Micro has become a great success I will have already turned 50. To start a company with ambitions like Energy Micro demands so much dedication and hard work that I doubt I’d be able to do it a third time. I will surely not retire though; I believe I will work until my very last day. Now and then I get inspired by what an American president once said: “First you learn, then you earn, and last you serve.”