Serge Leef

Background

About Serge Leef

In November 2025, Serge joined Synopsys' New Ventures organization.From 2022 to 2025 he worked at Microsoft on Generative AI and its applications to silicon design, implementation, and fabrication. Prior to that Serge served two terms at US Department of Defense as a DARPA PM where he was responsible for Secure Silicon, Next Generation Design Tools, and Domestic Microelectronics program portfolio.Prior to the DARPA appointment, Serge worked at Siemens EDA (formerly Mentor Graphics), where from 2010 until 2018 he was a Vice President of New Ventures, responsible for identifying and developing technology and business opportunities in systems-oriented markets. Additionally, from to 2018, he served as a division General Manager, responsible for defining strategies and building successful businesses around design automation products in the areas of hardware/software co-design, multi-physics simulation, IP integration, SoC optimization, design data management, automotive/aerospace networking, cloud-based electronic design, Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure, and hardware cybersecurity.Prior to joining Mentor, he was responsible for design automation at Silicon Graphics, where he and his team created revolutionary, high-speed simulation tools to enable the design of high-speed 3D graphics chips, which defined the state-of-the-art in visualization, imaging, gaming, and special effects for a decade. Earlier in his career, he managed a CAE/CAD organization at Microchip and developed functional and physical design and verification tools for major 8- and 16-bit microcontroller and microprocessor programs at Intel.Serge received his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and Master of Science degree in computer science from Arizona State University. He has served on corporate, state, and academic advisory boards, delivered numerous public speeches, and holds patents in hardware Trojan detection and Internet of Things (loT) infrastructure.