Steve Teig, founder and Co-CEO of Perceive, is a visionary technologist whose work has impacted industries ranging from software and semiconductors to biotechnology and machine learning. He drove the creation of Perceive while CTO of its parent company and investor, Xperi, where he supervised technology development, including core audio and imaging innovations, and led the company’s machine learning team.
Steve began his career as co-founder and CTO of Tangent Systems, where he was the principal technologist behind the place-and-route algorithms and infrastructure underlying all of the company’s products. In 1989, Tangent was sold to Cadence Design Systems, a leading provider of system design tools, and Steve went on to found multiple startups, leading each as CTO.
At BioCAD, a biotech software company that was the first to apply machine learning to pharmaceutical discovery, Steve invented machine learning techniques and novel conformational analysis algorithms to predict the potency of potential drug molecules. After selling BioCAD in 1993 to Molecular Simulations, Steve founded CombiChem, a computational drug discovery company, where his Discovery Engine™ technology powered the creation of pharmaceutical leads for 11 therapeutic targets. Steve guided CombiChem through multiple venture funding rounds and a 1998 IPO.
After BioCAD and CombiChem, Steve returned from biotechnology and drug discovery to software and semiconductors. He became CTO of Simplex Solutions, an EDA (electronic design automation) software company, where he invented the NX machine learning technology, was the principal inventor of the X architecture, and more. Simplex Solutions, which went public in 2001, was later acquired in 2002 by Cadence Design Systems with Steve named co-CTO.
From Cadence, Steve went on in 2003 to found Tabula, a fabless semiconductor company developing ultra-high-performance programmable logic chips. At Tabula, he invented the Spacetime 3D programmable chip architecture, DesignInsight™ observability technology, and the architecture for several generations of chips. Also during his tenure, Steve raised more than $340 million in funding from top-tier venture firms. In 2015, he joined Tessera, where he drove the expansion of the company’s products beyond imaging to include audio, leading to the acquisition of DTS in 2016 for roughly $1 billion.
As CTO of the resulting company, Xperi, Steve drove the incorporation of deep learning throughout the imaging business and led the research teams for machine learning, HD Radio, and some work in advanced semiconductors. He also led the creation of Perceive within Xperi, as the new company formed to bring datacenter-class accuracy and intelligence to consumer devices through a wide range of new applications.
Steve’s contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including an Edison Award and a World Technology Award, and he is an inventor on 411 U.S. patents across multiple disciplines. He holds a BSE in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University.