He is known as the father of the Pentium processor. However, for Vinod. K. Dham, the way to limelight is not an easy trek. Vinod was born in Pune in 1950. He completed his initial education in Pune. For his bachelor’s degree, Vinod went to the Delhi College of Engineering. In 1971, he graduated from the college with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. After graduation, he worked briefly in Delhi for Continental Devices – a semiconductor company.

In 1975, he went to the US. There, he joined the University of Cincinnati to pursue a Masters in Electrical Engineering (Solid State). After his masters, in 1977, Vinod joined the National Cash Register (NCR) at Dayton, Ohio. There, he was a team member of the NCR’s memory design group. His work at the NCR has enabled him to receive many patents. His big break came in the form of a presentation on these patents. While he was making a presentation at the IEEE conference in Monterrey, California on re-programmable memory, he received an offer from the Intel to work with them.

In Intel, he had to put in some time before he could work on major projects. Later, he was initiated into the project groups that handled the 386 and 486. In January 1990, Intel has made Vinod the in-charge of developing the 586 or Pentium processor. When the Pentium processor was ready, the market was not ready to accept it. Big computer companies were happy to use the 486 and Intel wanted to offer a product that is one generation ahead of competition in the form of the Pentium processor. Hence, Intel had to go out searching for a hardware manufacturing company that will use the Pentium processor.

They zeroed on a relatively unknown company called Packard Bell. The Pentium processor handled the task of providing graphics, audio and video as well as games on a home computer with aplomb. Soon, it became a big hit and other hardware manufacturers switched over to the Pentium processor. Meanwhile, at Intel, Vinod has risen up the corporate ladder. By the time he quit Intel in 1995, Vinod reached the position of the Vice President of the Intel's Microprocessor Products Group.

After 16 years at Intel, Vinod joined Nexgen Inc., a start up. At Nexgen, he was the Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President. When Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) acquired Nexgen in 1996, Vinod looked after the development of AMD’s famous K6 Processor, world’s fastest personal computer microprocessor. He quit AMD to join a start up – Silicon Spice Inc. Unlike the other companies where he worked before, Silicon Spice is into a different market. The company is involved in developing products that are information and communication centric rather that personal computer centric. At Silicon Spice, Vinod was the Chairman, President and the CEO. When Broadcom Corporation

acquired Silicon Spice for an impressive $ 1.2 billion; Vinod was appointed as the Vice President and General Manager, Carrier Access Business Unit. Broadcom Corporation is a leading developer of the highly integrated silicon solutions that enable broadband communications and networking of voice, video and data services.

Besides Broadcom, Vinod is also associated with HelloSoft Inc., a communications systems company. Vinod joined the board of HelloSoft as an advisor. Vinod is also associated with New Path Ventures LLC (NPV) a California-based venture capital fund, for investments in information technology in India. NPV was founded by Vinod Dham and Tushar Dave.

NPV is planning to help incorporate about five companies and invest around $5-10 million each in these entities. These five hybrid Indo-US companies that will focus on chip making, embedded software and system design