Mike Farmwald, General Partner

Mike Farmwald is a serial entrepreneur with one of the most successful track records in Silicon Valley. Known for his unique combination of computer engineering skill and market vision, Mike has founded six companies to date, five of which were financed in part by Benchmark Capital, where he is a Venture Partner. Mike is probably best known for cofounding Rambus Inc., a developer of scalable chip technologies that enable semiconductor memory devices and ASICs to keep pace with faster generations of processors and controllers. After founding the company in 1990, Mike served as Vice President and Chief Scientist, overseeing the development of several key innovations, including the 1992 introduction of the world's first 4 Mbit RDRAM.

In 1993, Mike cofounded Chromatic Research, a privately held developer of media processors for the PC industry. Mike served on the board of Chromatic Research until the company was acquired by ATI Technologies in November 1998. In 1996, Mike cofounded Epigram, creator of advanced semiconductor home networking technology, which helped revolutionize high-speed networking connectivity within the home. Epigram was acquired by Broadcom in April 1999. In late 1997, Mike cofounded Matrix Semiconductor, a pre-IPO start-up backed by Skymoon, Benchmark and Microsoft, among others.

Prior to his success at Rambus, Mike founded FTL in 1986. FTL, an ECL supercomputing company, merged with MIPS in the same year. At MIPS, Mike served as Chief Scientist for High End Systems. Following his experience at MIPS, Mike was an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois. Mike holds a BS degree in Mathematics from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. He currently sits on the boards of Rambus (Nasdaq: RMBS) and AON Networks. Mike's email is mike@farmwald.com and his personal website is www.farmwald.com.

Company Affiliations

Serving on boards is rewarding, as it allows one to be involved in determining the mission and purpose of some of today¹s most interesting companies, and then monitoring their progress over time. Mike Farmwald serves on the boards of the following companies:

Rambus, Inc. - www.rambus.com
Matrix Semiconductor - www.matrixsemi.com

Mike has also been involved in these companies:

Chromatic Research, Inc. (Sold to ATI Technologies)
Epigram (Sold to Broadcom)
Clarity (Sold to Cisco)

Technology Investing

Mike Farmwald likes watching technology companies grow. He invests in promising technology companies both on his own, and in partnership with Benchmark Capital - www.benchmark.com and Mohr, Davidow Ventures - www.mdv.com If you have a good idea and need help or money to develop it, send an email to Mike at info@skymoonventures.com

Favorite Companies

Favorites include the portfolio companies in which Mike invests through his company, Skymoon Ventures www.skymoonventures.com

Book Collection

Mike Farmwald is a collector of hard-to-find books about the continents, trees, and HL Mencken. He buys rare books on these topics from consumers, dealers, and libraries. Interested in corresponding with Mike about his book collection? Send your inquiry to mike@farmwald.com.

People Named Farmwald

Mike has a list of home pages of people named Farmwald. E-mail him at mike@farmwald.com if you want to be added to the list. More information on the Farmwald name: www.placesnamed.com/f/a/farmwald.asp