Remembering Sehat Sutardja, Marvell Co-founder

September 18, 2024

By Michael Kanellos, Head of Influencer Relations, Marvell

Marvell co-founder, Sehat Sutardja, was a visionary leader, brilliant engineer, and a cherished colleague and friend to many at Marvell.

Sehat's journey began in Jakarta, Indonesia where he would build Van de Graaf generators and other devices with spare parts from his parents' auto parts store. By 13, he was already a certified radio repair technician, showcasing his innate talent and curiosity. This early interest led him to pursue higher education in the United States, where he earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Iowa State University, followed by a master's and PhD in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Stephen Lewis, now a professor of electrical and computing engineering at UC Davis, described Sehat as a perfectionist in an article for IEEE Spectrum. As students, they were building analog-to-digital converters. The traditional way to make them involved using two capacitors, one twice the size as the other. "He figured out a way to do it with two identical capacitors, increasing the amplifier speed by increasing its feedback. We had a solution that worked, but he kept digging until he found a better way to do it."

In 1995, Sehat, wife Weili Dai, and Sehat's brother Pantas Sutardja founded Marvell Technology around a kitchen table. They chose the name Marvell because they wanted to build a company that could create 'marvelous' devices. The first product was a specialized read channel for hard drives that could be produced completely in silicon. Conventional wisdom was that the approach wouldn't work, Sehat told students during a lecture at Berkeley in 2014. The device, however, reduced power consumption and production cost while elevating performance. Marvell soon became a trusted partner to many of the world's leading technology companies.

As an inventor and co-inventor, Sehat held over 440 patents. He was recognized as the Inventor of the Year by the Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Law Association and named a Fellow of IEEE. He also received the Indonesian Diaspora Lifetime Achievement Award for Global Pioneering and Innovation and frequently spoke at events such as the International Solid State Circuits Conference about the future of semiconductor design and computing.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Sehat was known for his humility, kindness, and generosity. He was a mentor to many, always willing to share his knowledge and insights. The Marvell team is grateful for his contributions and the legacy he leaves behind through his co-founding of our company.