About SunRise Memory
SunRise Memory has brought together talent from industry-leading companies and academic labs. Cumulatively, our team represents hundreds of years of experience innovating in semiconductor memory and holds hundreds of patents for fundamental new technologies.
Executive Leadership
Eli Harari, Chairman and CEO
Dr. Eli Harari founded SunRise Memory in June 2016 and is its Chairman and CEO. In 1988, Harari founded SanDisk Corporation with a vision to replace magnetic storage with semiconductor flash memory. In 2010, he retired from SanDisk after twenty-two years as its Chairman and CEO. SanDisk was acquired in 2016 for approximately $18 billion. In 2009 Harari received the IEEE Robert N. Noyce medal. In 2014, Harari received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for invention and commercialization of flash storage technology to enable ubiquitous data in consumer electronics, mobile computing, and enterprise storage. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Harari received his PhD in Solid State Sciences at Princeton University in 1973.
Richard Chernicoff, Chief Financial Officer
Prior to SunRise Memory, Mr. Chernicoff served as Chief Financial Officer of two private companies. Chernicoff was with SanDisk Corporation where, as Senior Vice President, Business Development, his responsibilities included mergers and acquisitions, financings, intellectual property, and strategic initiatives. Early in his career, Chernicoff was a mergers and acquisitions partner in the Los Angeles office of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP, a corporate lawyer in the Los Angeles office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, a member of the staff of the SEC in Washington, DC, and an auditor in the Los Angeles office of Ernst & Young LLP.
Kavita Shah, Vice President of Process and Device Technology
As Vice President of Process and Device Technology at SunRise, Kavita shapes the strategic vision and drives the engineering roadmap execution for the company’sbreakthrough 3D ferroelectric memory technology. She leads cross-functional teams to secure foundational patents, validate silicon, and de-risk productization, directly boosting enterprise value and strengthening investor confidence. Kavita brings over 20 years of experience in semiconductor technology development and previously held global leadership roles at Nova and Applied Materials, where she fueled revenue growth, managed large-scale product portfolios, and built strategic partnerships across the semiconductor industry. Kavita holds more than 28 patents and publications. She earned an M.Eng. from Cornell University and a B.Eng. from the University of Pune, both in Chemical Engineering.
Sagie Goldenberg, Vice President of System Engineering
Mr. Goldenberg is a results-driven engineering leader with deep expertise in ASIC design, integration, and high-performance compute platforms. He spent over 18 years at Intel in technical and leadership roles, contributing to multiple generations of flagship processors. Combining strong technical depth with strategic vision, Goldenberg excels at leading multidisciplinary teams, bridging architecture and execution, and turning complex technologies into successful products.
Tz-Yi Liu, Head of Memory Design
Mr. Liu has more than 25 years of non-volatile memory design experience in Flash memory, 3D OTP memory, ReRAM and other emerging memories. Prior to joining SunRise, he was Director of Design Engineering at SanDisk and Western Digital, leading design effort of new memory development in collaboration with internal organizations from setting technology requirements to defining product specifications with customers. Earlier in his career, Liu held memory design positions at Micron Technology and Matrix Semiconductor. Liu received M.S. from Stanford University and B.S. from National Taiwan University, both in Electrical Engineering, and co-authored more than 30 patents and publications in the areas of circuit design, memory operation and system management.
Gene Rosenthal, Vice President of Product and Test Engineering
Mr. Rosenthal SunRise Corporation since 2017. Prior to SunRise Rosenthal was a test consultant for a private SSD Design company. Before that Rosenthal was at SanDisk Corporation for 18 years, as VP of Product and Test responsible for Flash Memory and ASIC Controllers Wafer yields as well as Final Test and Characterization. In addition, he defined all the Wafer and Final Test equipment for manufacturing and developed all the System level Test solutions for testing System level products including all the SSD, CF, SD, and USB products. Previously, he spent 8 years at SEEQ Technology as Director of Product and Test for EEPROM, UVEPROM and Flash Products and before that, 8 years at National Semiconductor responsible for Test Engineering of DRAM, UVEPROM and EEPROM Memory.
Aran Ziv, Vice President of Product Marketing
Prior to SunRise Memory, Mr. Ziv spent more than a decade in product portfolio leadership roles at memory companies including Western Digital and SanDisk, where he launched and grew new product categories, worked with Fortune 500 companies and global ecosystems, and earned product awards. Previously, Ziv held research and development leadership positions at M-Systems and worked as a VLSI physical designer at IBM. Mr. Ziv holds a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Tel Aviv University. He is an inventor on dozens of issued patents and an active participant in industry bodies and standards initiatives.
Sayeef Salahuddin, Consultant
Dr. Sayeef Salahuddin is the TSMC Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and Material Science and Engineering at the University of California Berkeley. His work has focused predominantly on exploring physical phenomena that show potential for improved energy efficiency in computing. Salahuddin’s work on the Negative Capacitance effect in ferroelectric materials has led to very high effective permittivity in capacitors - well beyond conventional limits and has been adopted in the most advanced memory technology and microprocessors. Salahuddin received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers (PECASE) from President Obama. In addition, he received the IEEE Andrew S Grove Award, a technical field award given by IEEE, for ‘For outstanding contributions to solid-state devices and technology’. Salahuddin is a Fellow of the IEEE, the APS and the AAAS.
Board of Directors
Stephen J. Luczo, Vice Chairman
Mr. Luczo was previously President and CEO at Seagate and Chairman of the board. Before that, he was a Senior Managing Director of the Global Technology Group of Bear, Stearns & Co. Mr. Luczo currently serves on the boards of directors of AT&T, Morgan Stanley, and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, as well as several private and non-profit companies. He also previously served on the boards of directors of Microsoft Corporation, Veritas, and VMWare. Mr. Luczo is currently a Managing Partner at Crosspoint Capital.
John C. Morris
Dr. Morris is responsible for accelerating technology partnerships with Seagate’s customers and cultivating emerging customers globally. Prior to his current role, Dr. Morris was Vice President for Seagate’s hard drive and SSD product lines. Before that, he served as VP of Design Engineering for Seagate’s enterprise development group, focusing on technical and strategic alignment with enterprise and cloud customers. Since joining the company in 1996, Dr. Morris has held a variety of engineering leadership positions and has been a key contributor to many of Seagate’s core technologies. He holds 32 patents, primarily related to hard-drive technologies.
