Walden C. Rhines

CEO and Chairman, Mentor Graphics Corp.

Most Important Technology of the Last 40 Years:

Photolithography for semiconductors.

Most Important Technology for the Coming Decade:

Radio frequency communications.

Technology That has Evolved in a Surprising Way:

Digital micromirror device technology, developed by Larry Hornbeck at Texas Instruments and now used in TI's Digital Light Processing components. In the mid-1970s, we were excited by the technology and thought it would be a short time before system designers began applying it broadly. Fifteen years later, we were still trying to find a business model [for it]. It was a nearly blind leap of faith that led Jerry Ray Junkins, then TI's CEO, to fund the enormous cost of manufacturing facilities and development that took the DLP to the next step and made high-volume display products possible.