Strata is scaling innovation, not consumption.

Who we are
Our team came together to initiate the development of novel integrated circuits that will power the next wave of high-speed, ultra-efficient technological devices. Even as we have made breakthroughs in achieving that, our collective of inventors, designers, and builders continue to defy the odds.

Meet the team

Prof. Eugene (Gene) Fitzgerald
Chairman
"Future technologies usually remain in the future but not in the case of nsc chips."
Gene is co-founder and Chairman of nsc, and oversees technology development and roadmaps. He has been CEO of SMART, MIT’s Research Enterprise in Singapore and a Chair Professor in Materials Engineering at MIT. His research work resulted in the discovery of high mobility strained silicon, the basis of the founding of his first company. He is a practicing researcher, serial innovator and entrepreneur and has founded or co-founded seven enterprises. He is co-author of the book “Inside Real Innovation." Gene received his undergraduate degree from MIT in 1985 and his PhD from Cornell University in 1989.
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Dr. Andrew Kim
CEO
"Amazing products are willed into existence by unreasonable people like us!"
Andrew is CEO of nsc. He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Low Energy Electronic Systems (LEES) program in the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) where the foundational technology for nsc was developed. He contributed to the rise of solid-state lighting during a 16 year career at Lumileds in leadership positions in both R&D and operations. He then co-founded Glint Lighting, a leader in advanced lighting whose flagship product, Hero, won every possible major industry and design award and is featured in prominent installations worldwide; he later led the acquisition of Glint by a larger lighting company in 2024. He chairs the SEMI HB-LED technical committee, sits on the advisory board of Novaflex Lighting, and is a member of numerous other industry and technical boards. He is a recognized expert in semiconductors, epitaxy, integration, and lighting and holds 16 U.S. patents in these fields.
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Dr. Kenneth Lee
Chief scientist
"nsc's monolithic integration flow is the only manufacturable way to get to the cost, performance and functionality demanded by future electronic devices."
Ken is co-founder of nsc, and concurrently the Senior Scientific Director of the Low Energy Electronic Systems (LEES) Interdisciplinary Research Group at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). He is responsible for developing the core technologies underpinning the novel monolithically integrated CMOS + III-V platforms used by NSC to create the integrated electronic and photonic systems of the future. He previously spent various stints within the Ministry of Defence, DSO National Laboratories, and the Temasek Laboratories at Nanyang Technological University, where he performed various roles such as technology funding and programme management, in addition to leading research teams. This forms part of his 20 years of experience in the fields of semiconductors, optoelectronics and photonics. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in Electrical Engineering. He holds over 20 U.S and international patents.
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Andrew Kim
CEO
Kenneth Lee
Chief scientist
Eugene Fitzgerald
CHAIRMAN
Andrew takes deep tech from lab to market.
A relentless product innovator, Andrew led 19 product releases at Lumileds and is best known for his breakthrough work that made Lumileds the world leader in green LED performance and the 50x improvement in LED reliability that enabled LED televisions and smartphone flash.  He later co-founded Glint Lighting, where he built the product, manufacturing, and sales groups behind four award-winning products, then led the company through its 2024 exit.

Andrew advises numerous organizations, including serving as chair of the SEMI HB-LED Standards Committee and as member of the IES Museum and Art Gallery Lighting Committee.  He has numerous publications and holds 16 US patents. Andrew holds S.B. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT in materials science and engineering.
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Ken builds deep technology platforms.
A skilled operator in electronics and optics, Ken spent 12 years in Singapore’s defense R&D sector, culminating in a $110M portfolio of classified programs at the Ministry of Defence.  He then led the SMART Low Energy Electronic Systems group, where he directed development of the technology underlying Staera, including co-authoring the earliest work on LED-based on-chip optical links.

Ken has published more than 100 papers and holds 11 US patents.  He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. from MIT, all in electrical engineering.
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Gene expands what silicon can do.
A pioneer of integrating new materials into silicon, Gene developed strained silicon through his research at AT&T Bell Labs and MIT, and commercialized the technology through his startup, AmberWave, which licensed it to Intel and later sold its patent portfolio to TSMC.  His work in III-V integration with silicon spans his group’s seminal work at MIT through to his founding the SMART Low Energy Electronic Systems group where Staera’s technology platform was born.

Gene is also the Merton C. Flemings-SMA Chair in Materials Engineering at MIT and co-founder of the MIT Innovation and Entrepreneurship minor program.  He has co-founded six companies, published more than 500 papers, holds more than 100 patents, and is author of “Inside Real Innovation” and “The Invisible Engine: Why Innovation Evades Control”.  Gene holds an S.B. degree from MIT and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University, all in materials science and engineering.
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Speed of light, at the scale of silicon

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