Management Team
Gert Goossens, CEO
Before co-founding Target in 1996, Gert Goossens was affiliated with the IMEC research centre, where he headed research groups on behavioural synthesis and software compilation. Gert has authored or co-authored around 40 papers in electronic design automation. He received a masters and a Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from K.U. Leuven, in 1984 and 1989 respectively.
Dirk Lanneer, Vice President Tool Development
Before co-founding Target, an IMEC spin-off, Dirk Lanneer worked from 1986 to 1996 as researcher at IMEC, first on the "Cathedral 2nd" behavioural synthesis system, and later extending techniques from this research to retargetable compilation. Dirk received his master's and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, in 1986 and 1993 respectively.
Werner Geurts, Vice President Applications
Before co-founding Target in 1996, Werner Geurts was a researcher at IMEC, where he has been working on behavioural synthesis of data-path structures and on retargetable compilation. Werner has co-authored several papers in electronic design automation. He holds master's degrees in electrical engineering from the Hogeschool Antwerpen and K.U. Leuven, and a Ph.D. degree from K.U. Leuven, since 1985, 1988, and 1995 respectively.
Johan Van Praet, Vice President Architecture Modeling and Synthesis
Before co-founding Target in 1996, Johan Van Praet worked out a processor modelling methodology for retargetable compilation and processor design at IMEC. He holds several patents for this research, and his Ph.D. thesis on this topic was awarded the IBM Belgium prize for computer science 1998. Johan earned his master's and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the K.U. Leuven, respectively in 1990 and 1997.
Steve Cox, Vice President Business Development North America
Steve joined Target Compiler Technologies in 2006 to lead Target's efforts in replicating its European successes in the North American market. Prior to Target, Steve played a key role in the early development of higher-level verification methods and technologies (known as transaction-based verification). In 1992, he founded Idealogy, an SoC verification startup serving tier-1 semiconductor and systems houses. Idealogy was ultimately acquired by Design Acceleration, and subsequently by Cadence. Before that, Steve had a long history in microprocessor and SoC design and integration, having worked on PowerPC, SPARC, and 88K-based systems for companies such as Apple, Solbourne Computer, and Motorola/Freescale. Steve holds a BS EE/CS from the University of Colorado, 1986.