Granite River Labs Overview

GRL began in early 2010 with a vision to provide affordable test services to help hardware developers implement high speed connectivity technologies as these technologies become faster and more complex, and harder and more difficult to test. Today, GRL has worked with over 500 semiconductor and system companies providing end-to-end Engineering Services and Test Solutions from our world-wide test facilities and R&D centers.

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GRL Technical Leadership

GRL distinguishes itself with deep technical engagement well beyond traditional “compliance” test services. Most of GRL’s energy goes into stress testing and characterizing early IC and System designs “beyond compliance”, debugging R&D and field issues, and developing Test Solutions and test methodologies for new technologies.

Our Experience

A trusted partner of small up-and-coming hardware developers to some of the largest companies in the world, GRL combines recognized industry experts, high performance test equipment, automated test solutions, and convenient locations to provide the utmost in customer service and robust, user-friendly tools. Together with our customers we overcome challenges with designing and validating early stage products and new connectivity technologies.

Business Leadership

GRL's Leadership Team across the globe.

Johnson Tan

Co-Founder & CEO

Quintin Anderson

Co-Founder & COO

Vamshi Kandalla

Chief Strategy Officer

Holger Kunz

President World Wide Services

Evan Sun

President World Wide Solutions

Alan Chuang

General Manager, GRL Greater China

Cyan Chen

General Manager, GRL Shanghai

Dabbie Fu

Vice General Manager, GRL Dongguan

Kristof Mommen

General Manager, GRL Belgium & Vice-President of Business Development, EMEA

Lutz Menzfeld

General Manager, GRL Germany

Jee-Woong Moon

General Manager, GRL Korea and Vice President for Regional Large Accounts

Kenichi Suganami

General Manager, GRL Japan

Kalyan Varma

Vice President of Market Access Services, Global and General Manager, GRL Services India

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Johnson Tan

Co-Founder & CEO

As CEO, Johnson’s main goal is to help customer navigate a world where connectivity solutions continue to get faster, proliferate, and get harder to implement. Johnson was previously VP & GM of the USB and Networking Business Units at SMSC, a fabless semiconductor company focused on connectivity solutions. Through his experiences developing, adopting and selling connectivity technologies, Johnson takes a very customer centric view on GRL’s service model and offerings. He holds a BS and MS in EECS from MIT, and MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Quintin Anderson

Co-Founder & COO

Quintin runs operations at GRL and focuses on creating superior customer experiences through extraordinary levels of customer service. Since 2015, Quintin has served on the Board of Directors of the HDMI Forum, whose purpose is to to guide the future direction of HDMI technology, develop new versions of the HDMI Specification, and foster broader global adoption and interoperability. Prior to co-founding GRL, Quintin held leadership positions with Deloitte Consulting on three continents and has extensive experience in operations, finance, and general management. He earned a BS with highest honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a MBA from Harvard Business School.

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Vamshi Kandalla

Chief Strategy Officer

Vamshi brings to GRL a strong track record of success with over 20 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry. Prior to GRL, Vamshi was the head of Symmetricom’s Global Embedded Solutions Division responsible for global marketing, product management, technical management and business creation; and held leadership positions with Applied Micro, MosChip Semiconductor, and Standard Microsystems (SMSC). Vamshi holds a B.E. in Instrumentation Engineering and an MBA.

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Holger Kunz

President World Wide Services

Holger brings over 25 years of experience in TIC. Prior to GRL, Holger has held various roles with TÜV Rheinland (TÜVR), a global leader in the Testing, Inspection, Certification (TIC) industry. He oversaw tremendous growth and margin expansion through various organic initiatives and strategic acquisitions. Holger has developed and implemented global processes for project management utilizing excellent quality management. Solid multi-disciplinary background with years of experience from data privacy to sales and HR. He has a proven track record of turning around businesses, achieving double digit growth, straddling short term results and long-term strategy execution.

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Evan Sun

President World Wide Solutions

Responsible for delivering state-of-the-art test solution products and driving the development of new product offerings. In addition to managing the Solution Business Unit’s P&L, he is also in charge of implementing business strategy and guiding investments, which include M&A activity. Mr. Sun holds an M.S. in Mechanical and Electronic Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and an M.B.A. Concentration in Finance & Entrepreneurship from The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.

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Alan Chuang

General Manager, GRL Greater China

Alan manages all aspects needed for Greater China business growth in corporate regional business strategy. Solid technical background combined with 15 years of multi-disciplinary experience, from business vision to hands-on product development in electrical and electronic testing and instrumentation industry. Prior to GRL, Alan worked in Agilent and Rigol as Channel sales, Business development manager, Regional sales manager. He holds an MS in Electrophysics from National Chiao Tung University.

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Cyan Chen

General Manager, GRL Shanghai

Cyan brings 16 years of experience on SI/PI Validation. Expertise in TBT, USB, PCIe, SATA, DisplayPort/DisplayHDR certification program and is USB-IF Certified Engineer. Cyan manages the daily operations of GRL Shanghai, including allocating budget resources, formulating policies, coordinating business operations, monitoring and motivating staff. She is also responsible for managing operational costs, ensuring good customer service, improving administration processes, engaging with vendors and identifying business opportunities.

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Dabbie Fu

Vice General Manager, GRL Dongguan

Dabbie Fu is the Vice General Manager for GRL Dongguan. An industry veteran with over a decade of experience in the IT market of Mainland China, she has played an integral role in developing sales strategies and achieving revenue targets at GRL Dongguan as sales manager since 2019. Today, Dabbie is responsible for enhancing and expanding GRL Dongguan’s testing capacity in USB4, DP2.1, CIO80, PCIE GEN5/6, and more. She is effectively bilingual in both English and Mandarin and holds a Bachelor's degree in Engineering Communications from Jiangsu University.

Kristof Mommen
Kristof Mommen

General Manager, GRL Belgium & Vice-President of Business Development, EMEA

Kristof is responsible for leading GRL's expansion across Europe and focuses on creating superior customer experiences for customers across the region. He has extensive experience in high-speed serial data and charging technologies. Prior to joining GRL, Kristof spent over 17 years at Eurofins Digital Testing where he expanded the company’s digital test services portfolio and customer base. Kristof earned a Bachelor of Electronics in Hardware Design and a Master of Electronics in Information Technology.

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Lutz Menzfeld

General Manager, GRL Germany

As General Manager for Germany, Lutz Menzfeld is responsible for leading GRLs’ expansion in Europe. He is a manufacturing veteran with decades of experience in shaping organizations as they adapt to new business structures, embrace new processes and implement new production technologies. In addition to an in-depth understanding in sourcing, logistic and supply chain management, Menzfeld is an expert in quality management systems and processes. He held leadership positions with TÜV Rheinland where he led the global continuous improvement team. He has also held senior management positions in Europe and Asia Pacific, with manufacturers of sophisticated, precision-engineered products.

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Jee-Woong Moon

General Manager, GRL Korea and Vice President for Regional Large Accounts

Jee-Woong is the General Manager for Granite River Labs Korea, as well as Vice President for Regional Large Accounts. In addition to launching GRL’s first point of presence internationally important Korean market, he is responsible for growing the organization’s business across a broad range of sectors, including semiconductor, automotive and consumer electronics. Prior to GRL, Jee-Woong was Sales Vice President, APAC for TUV Rheinland Korea. During his 15-year tenure at TUV, he ran the organization’s business in Korea and was responsible for sales in 9 APAC locations. Jee-Wong has worked for some of the biggest names in the tech sector, such as Motorola Networks Inc., where he was the Key Account Manager/PM for Korea Telecom PowerTel and Network infrastructure equipment sales, and Maxon Telecom. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Kyung-Hee University.

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Kenichi Suganami

General Manager, GRL Japan

Ken oversees the management of GRL Japan’s operations as General Manager. He has spent over 11 years at Arm Japan as the Regional Segment Marketing Director covering Automotives, Embedded, Smartphone, Gaming, and Digital Consumer product segments. Working deeply with major Japanese OEMs, particularly in digital consumers, game consoles, and LSI companies, Ken has comprehensive knowledge in Machine Learning, GPU, and CPU-based system architecture for digital consumer products.

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Kalyan Varma

Vice President of Market Access Services, Global and General Manager, GRL Services India

Besides serving as the Vice President of Market Access Services for Granite River Labs globally, Kalyan Varma is also the General Manager for Services in India. Along with supporting IoT and digital-connected technologies strategy, he is also responsible for developing GRL India Services and Laboratories and the establishment of Market Services globally. During his 21 years with TUV Rheinland Group, Kalyan established various labs and services globally, managed the profit and loss of 20 countries, and strategized and directed the global wireless strategy as the Director, Global Wireless Program and Vice President, Global Business Field Electrical. An expert in various fields, including safety, electromagnetic compatibility, and wireless, he also serves on a number of national and international forums and working groups dedicated to developing and implementing conformity assessment services in the areas of international regulations, market access, cybersecurity, and various IoT alliances. He holds an Executive MBA in General Management in addition to a background in Electronics and Communication engineering.

Technical Expertise

At GRL’s foundation lies a team of veterans from the test and measurement and semiconductor industries with deep domain expertise across connectivity technologies and disciplines. Our collective expertise goes well beyond “just testing”, addressing Signal & Power Integrity, Analog/SERDES design, IC Characterization, and Protocol & Application layer design, Test Methodology development, and Test Automation.

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GRL’s technical leadership brings experience from a variety of leading firms including Tektronix, Intel®, Broadcom, NEC/Renesas, O2Micro, Rambus, J-Micron, Microchip, Applied Micro, and Lucent Technologies.

Our #1 priority is to build a great firm that attracts, develops, excites, and retains exceptional people. If you are interested in joining GRL’s growing team of experts, visit our Careers page and contact us to discuss career opportunities.

Technical Leadership

GRL’s experts are recognized veterans in the Test & Measurement and Semiconductor Industries and bring years of experience to address challenging testing, debugging, and design needs.

Miki Takahashi

Executive Vice President of Engineering

Rajaraman Venkatachalam

Executive Vice President of Protocol and Power Solutions

Eugene Sushansky

Vice President of Global Engineering

Steven Lee

Director of QA

Sandy Chang

Engineering Fellow & Technical Director, GRL Taiwan

Vasudev Uttharahalli

Senior Director-Product Management and Business Development

Kiyoki Sekine

Engineering Manager, GRL Japan

Shibin Veerendrakumar

Senior Engineering Fellow & Technical Director, GRL India

Swee Guan Chua

Senior Director - EV Solutions and High-volume Solutions, GRL Penang

Allen Chen

Director of Engineering , GRL Taiwan

Creda Man

Engineering Manager, GRL Shanghai

MyoungHyun Choi

Laboratory Director, GRL Korea

Pascal Berten

Laboratory Director, GRL EMEA

Dengliang Sun

Applications Manager, GRL Shanghai

Winson Mok

Lab Manager, GRL Dongguan

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Miki Takahashi

Executive Vice President of Engineering

Miki spent 15 years at O2Micro, Advanced Chip Express and NEC most recently as Analog Design Manager, taking the lead in SERDES IP development and integration into ICs and systems. Miki is an expert in SERDES design, SD Interfaces (UHS-1, UHS-2), CF Interfaces (CFast, XQD), and JEDEC (DDR, UFS). Miki currently Chairs the SD Card Association UHS-TG to drive SI discussion and test specification for UHS-II (SD4.0).

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Rajaraman Venkatachalam

Executive Vice President of Protocol and Power Solutions

Raja spent over 14 years at Tektronix, Intel and Prodigy Technovations leading the development of automated testing solutions for high speed digital interfaces. Raja has deep experience in post-silicon validation methodologies and developing electrical and protocol compliance testing tools, and is an expert in HDMI, MHL, DisplayPort, UniPro, PCI Express, SD, I2C, SPI, UART, and MMC.

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Eugene Sushansky

Vice President of Global Engineering

Eugene spent over two years at Toshiba America Electronic Components (TAEC) where he was a Senior Hardware Engineering Validation Manager, and over 13 years at PLX Technology (now Broadcom) as Senior Design Manager. Eugene is an expert in silicon and system characterization, as well as SERDES and discrete components validation. He has extensive expertise in receiver and transmitter testing for PCI Express, SAS, SATA, and other high speed data standards..

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Steven Lee

Director of QA

With over 25 years experience in QA, Steven manages functional test programs at GRL world-wide, including MFi, HomeKit, Thunderbolt, and USB. Prior to joining GRL, Steven spent 16 years at Apple as USB SQA Manager working on many hardware projects. Prior to Apple, Steven worked for Everex, Borland and Fujitsu PC in similar QA roles.

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Sandy Chang

Engineering Fellow & Technical Director, GRL Taiwan

Sandy spent 14 years at J-Micron and Agilent/HP most recently as System Design Manager. Sandy is an expert in SATA, USB, PCI Express, HDMI, DisplayPort, DDR, and Ethernet compliance, characterization, and debugging.

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Vasudev Uttharahalli

Senior Director-Product Management and Business Development

Vasu has a rich experience of over 30 years in the Test and Measurement and Embedded Solutions space.  Performed various key roles in his 21 years at Tektronix with the last role as the strategic product planner. Vasudev has extensive expertise in MIPI, PCIE, HDMI, DisplayPort, AVNU, and USB standards. Vasu has held key industry positions such as Board of Directors HDMI Forum, Chairman Test Subgroup HDMI Forum, and Vice-Chairman Test Subgroup HDMI Forum. 

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Kiyoki Sekine

Engineering Manager, GRL Japan

Kiyoki spent 22 years as an engineer for communication engineering area in OKI, Lucent Technologies, HMS Industrial Networks and XXCAL Japan. Kiyoki has expertise in USB (2.0/3.1/Power Delivery), RF/DSP (3GPP, WiFi and ZigBee), and Industrial Ethernet. Kiyoki is the certified test engineer from USB-IF and qualified by the Japanese government as a Professional Engineer (IE).

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Shibin Veerendrakumar

Senior Engineering Fellow & Technical Director, GRL India

Shibin spent last 11 years at Intel, Nvidia, Freescale and STMicroelectronics, most recently as Staff Engineer. Shibin has deep experience in post-silicon validation and protocol compliance testing and is an expert in System integration, SOC bring up, PCI Express, USB, MIPI, DDR, LPDDR, Laser diode driver, ADC & DAC.

Swee Guan Chua
Swee Guan Chua

Senior Director - EV Solutions and High-volume Solutions, GRL Penang

Swee Guan Chua has over 15 years of experience in automated test solutions, production automation, and most recently, solution architecture. Having worked at Mexter, Agilent and Keysight, Swee Guan has gained deep expertise in HDMI and DisplayPort Electrical Validation, and wide exposure to high volume production automation software.

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Allen Chen

Director of Engineering , GRL Taiwan

Allen Chen spent over 15 years at ITRI, Sunplus, and XinzeDigital. Allen Chen is an expert in IP Verification, SI/PI Simulation, Mipi, HDMI, DisplayPort, and DDR.

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Creda Man

Engineering Manager, GRL Shanghai

Creda Man has over 17 years of experience in server/laptop SI and function verification with expertise in TBT, USB, SATA certification program, and PCle, Ethernet compliance test solutions.

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MyoungHyun Choi

Laboratory Director, GRL Korea

MyoungHyun is an expert in Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) for Wireless IOT products. He has extensive expertise in WiFi, Bluetooth, WPC, Lora, Thread, ZigBee, and HDMI/HDCP. Before joining GRL, MyoungHyun worked with Cetecom, TUV Rheinland, and LG Display. 

Pascal Berten Lab Director EMEA
Pascal Berten

Laboratory Director, GRL EMEA

Pascal leads technical execution at GRL’s labs in Germany and Belgium. A world-recognized expert in USB testing, Pascal has deep technical expertise in signal integrity, protocol and functional testing as well as power and cable design and test methodologies for multiple technologies including Ethernet, DisplayPort, MIPI, and HDMI. He has over 20 years of experience working closely with standards organizations such as the USB-IF, MIPI Alliance and others to develop new specifications. Prior to joining GRL, Pascal spent over 20 years at Eurofins Digital Testing where he led testing, certification, interoperability, and troubleshooting efforts for a wide variety of products.

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Dengliang Sun

Applications Manager, GRL Shanghai

With over two decades of experience, Dengliang ensures a world class test automation solutions experience for GRL’s customers.  Prior to joining GRL, Dengliang held various positions with Lenovo, Huawei, Tektronix, and Keysight Technologies.  He has extensive experience and deep expertise in signal integrity and power integrity, test instrumentation and methodology, and high speed connectivity standards including PCI Express, USB, HDMI, and DDR.

Winson Mok
Winson Mok

Lab Manager, GRL Dongguan

Winson specializes in system characterization and signal integrity, with over 7 years high speed testing experience. He has extensive expertise in test equipment and methods for PCI Express, Thunderbolt, USB, Ethernet, and other high speed data standards. Prior to GRL, Winson worked for Anritsu where he oversaw wireline technical support.