Behind the specs

Shuichi Inoue
Vice President, Corporate Development and Quality

Inoue-san joined Atonarp August 2019. He reports to Prakash Murthy and works at the Tokyo office.

Please tell us a little bit about your role.

I take care of establishing relationships with new external stakeholders in Japan. For example, I work with Furukawa (a product development partner), Sony (a major customer in semiconductor), and consult with our business and technical advisors. I support sales and marketing for establish relationships for new business. I am also responsible for administration of hiring for the Tokyo office. I also support product development and Quality for the ASTON mass spectrometry and ATON multi-laser optical spectroscopy product lines.

Please share a bit about your background.

I have worked semiconductor process development for ~35 years. My expertise is all unit process (e.g., CVD, wet process , lithography, CMP)  I have also been responsible for general management of process development and  integration for such as  DRAM, Logic, Analogue and Power devices.

What drew you to join Atonarp?

After long career at an established, big semiconductor company (NEC/Renesas), the start-up Atonarp was a new challenge for me. I wanted to know how start-up is different from old established company and how I can contribute to building a company using my experience.

What qualities does a person in your position need to possess?

Do everything I can contribute to the development, business, manufacturing, quality, and internal/external relationship management with plenty of experience so far.

Do not stop. Keep going forward.

What are your guiding principles for team management?

It is very similar to mountain climbing. You need to have a goal and a plan. “I will reach the summit of this mountain. The team will pursue this path.” What I can do as an individual and what we can do as a team is advance one step at a time. Focus on completing that step successfully and never stop. Repeat the step and continue. Don’t select the wrong step stone otherwise you will fall. For Start-up, do it quickly otherwise the summit disappears.

Don’t complain about what we don’t have now, but 200% creatively  utilize the tools that we do have now. That is what your brains are for! Nobody in the world has what we have now. That is the start-up.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I like Ham radio, mountain trekking, radio control airplane, occasionally Japanese traditional game fishing, and Hera-buna.