Managing Director

Frank Theunis  

Frank started his career in the semiconductor industry 34 years ago at Philips Nijmegen as a product assembly engineer for Base station PA’s. In this role he was responsible for Design For Manufacturing (DFM) and as consequence interfaced not only with the local design team but also with the waferfab, the assembly centres in Asia and several suppliers both in the USA as well as in Asia. After several years he became responsible for Package concept development in combination with supervising the local prototyping line and started to work on laminate as well as ceramic based SiP modules.

In 2006 at NXP he became Project Lead for the development of a hermetic cavity packaging concept for a RF-MEMS component. In this role he was responsible for the coordination and final down-selection between 4 alternative technology developments running in parallel at 3rd parties as well as internal.

Next to his work he contributed to the activities of ECTC as a member of the committee for Electronic Components & RF (2007-2016)

In 2008 he joined EPCOS Netherlands and had full Back-End responsibility for the development of its first Antenna Tuner module. He successfully defined the packaging concept (laminate-based SiP) and set up a local supply chain with 3rd parties to enable faster prototyping for the initial phase of this project. At the next phase he closely worked together as Staff MT-member with the General Manager to assess and select supply chain partners in Asia for process blocks not being available within EPCOS. Frank managed the release of the supply chain and EPCOS first Antenna Tuner product. He defined the packaging roadmap for the next generations and was again heavily involved in the selection of a new supply chain partner for leadframe based SiP concepts. He managed the start-up of a new design at this partner.  

In 2013 EPCOS Netherlands was acquired by Qualcomm Technologies. Continuing his support for Antenna Tuners and now also for Antenna switches he became also responsible for the coordination of the activities in the local RF measurement lab. He initiated and realized the setup of a mechanical workshop to speed up prototyping or allow mechanical modifications and he also set up a SMT repair service for other Qualcomm sites. After some years he joined the Qualcomm NPI department and became responsible for RF frontend modules developed by regional design teams in Europe. He successfully released several modules at different SAT’s.

In 2019 Frank joined as VP Operations the start-up company SemiBlocks B.V. targeting the introduction of an innovative concept for crystal-based oscillators. He took care of the definition of a packaging concept and material set, definition and set up appropriate supply chain partners and re-designed the existing Motherboard/daughterboard demonstrator into a laminate-based SiP module. He successfully managed the manufacturing of initial batches of SiP modules including the assembly on Test boards. He also created the packaging roadmap for future generations of products.

Appreciating the mindset and motivation of start-ups in combination of understanding the challenges they face in arranging the first prototypes or moving from prototyping to production Frank decided to start his own consultancy company  semassy at the end of 2021 to offer support to such companies.