Vinod Dham is an Indian – American inventor and entrepreneur, popularly known as the father of Pentium chip.
Born in Pune, Dham did his BE degree in electrical engineering at the Delhi College of Engineering, and a masters at the University of Cincinnati.
In 1971, he joined a Delhi-based semiconductor company called Continental Devices as an engineer. Then he moved to National Cash Register (NCR) in Ohio. After a brief stint there, Dham joined Intel, and developed the famous Pentium processor. It was a huge success in the market, and took Dham to the position of the vice president of the Intel’s Microprocessor Products Group. He also co-founded Intel’s first Flash Memory technology (ETOX).
He worked there till 1995, and then moved to NexGen, a startup, as its COO and executive vice president. The company was later acquired by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), where Dham developed the K6 processor, which even briefly held the title of fastest computer processor.
In the years that followed, Dham founded many ventures. He is currently the managing director of the Indo-US Venture Partners, as well as the CEO of Acadglid. In 2000, he was appointed to the President’s advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders by the then US President Bill Clinton.