Irvine chip startup Quartics Inc. recruited a chief executive from Sunnyvale-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Mario Rivas, who headed AMD’s computing solutions group, was named to the post a few weeks ago.
He replaces Safi Qureshey, who started Quartics in 2003.
The company makes chips that wirelessly link computers and cell phones to digital televisions.
Quartics is aiming to sell its chips to companies that make PCs, digital TVs, set-top boxes and graphics cards,processors that help video and other graphics download faster.
Customers include PC maker Acer Inc., which owns Irvine’s Gateway Inc., D-Link Systems Inc., which has operations in Fountain Valley, NEC Corp., InFocus Corp. and ViewSonic Corp., which is just over the county line in Walnut.
Before AMD, Rivas ran the communication businesses of Royal Philips Electronics NV’s semiconductor division.
Prior to Philips, he spent nearly two decades at Motorola Inc.’s chip arm, which later spun off to form Freescale Semiconductor Inc.
Qureshey, a native of Pakistan, came out of retirement to start Quartics.
He’s best known as the founder of computer maker AST Research Inc., the defunct Irvine company that once ranked among the top computer makers before crashing hard in the mid-1990s.
Qureshey helped grow the company from a garage outfit to a Fortune 500 company.
Samsung Electronics Co. bought AST in 1997 and later dissolved the business. He’s set to stay on as chairman at Quartics, which has about 100 workers here.
Qureshey won’t retire anytime soon and says he’s “very active” in the company.
‘Rising Star’
Santa Ana’s Synoptek Inc., a privately held business and technology consulting company, recently was named one of 10 “rising stars” on a list of fast-growing companies by Deloitte LLP.
Deloitte’s rising star companies have been in business three to five years and are selected based on revenue growth for the three years ended in 2007.
Synoptek, which expects to see about $6 million in sales this year, recorded 1,657% sales growth in three years, according to Deloitte.
The company, which has some 30 workers here, has two lines of business. One is traditional business consulting for large companies in retail, consumer products, financial services and healthcare.
The other is tech outsourcing with business consulting services geared toward companies with 50 to 500 workers.
There were 24 Orange County winners among the 500 companies on the list.
Internet Access
Orange-based Marshal8e6 Inc., a maker of Web filtering servers and software for small businesses and schools, landed a $10 million round of venture funding.
Edison, N.J.-based Updata Partners led the round.
Marshal8e6 was formed when Orange’s 8e6 Technologies Inc. and Britain’s Marshal Ltd. combined earlier this month.
Its global headquarters stayed here and its international operations are headed from Marshal’s offices near London.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. It appears to be a true merger,each of the original entities owns half of the new company’s shares.
8e6 Technologies, which started in OC in the mid-1990s, sells specialized servers loaded with Web site blocking software.
Tustin’s Ricoh Electronics Inc. manufactures the servers locally, loads them with 8e6’s software and ships them to customers.
The server is installed in a corporation’s or school’s rack room, where it can prevent users on a network from accessing inappropriate content, such as pornography, or sites that may install harmful software on a computer.
“We allow companies and schools to decide where their employees and students spend time on the Internet,” said Paul Myer, senior vice president of corporate development of Marshal8e6. “Increasingly, people have bought our product to put in an extra layer of security and block threats from hackers, malicious code, spyware and malware that can cause harm to the network.”
The combined Marshal8e6 is set to see about $50 million in annual sales, Myer said.
The merger helped Marshal get into the U.S. market and 8e6 go after sales abroad.
The two companies’ offerings make for a total package, Myer said.
“About 75% of Marshal’s revenue is in e-mail security, which is something we don’t do,” he said. “There’s very little overlap.”
Marshal8e6 has about 140 workers locally and maintains an office in Taiwan.
8e6 Technologies was founded in 1995 as Log-on-Data Corp. by George Shih and Michael Bradshaw. Shih stayed on as acting chief executive of Marshal8e6.
Following an infusion of venture funds in 2000, the company changed its name to 8e6 Technologies.
Correction
My Nov. 10 column should have said that Infra-Comm Corp. is based in San Juan Capistrano.
