- Chuck McClish is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lattrex Inc., where he is pioneering a new class of asynchronous semiconductor processors designed to overcome the limitations of conventional clock-driven computing. Through Kyttar, his vision is to enable massively parallel, power-efficient real-time signal processing that challenges decades of established semiconductor architecture.
- Lattrex Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company developing asynchronous parallel processors for next-generation real-time signal processing applications. Operating as a Delaware C-Corporation with engineering activities in Tennessee, the company designed its first 120-cell prototype using a fully open-source semiconductor design flow on the SkyWater 130nm process while pursuing strategic collaborations and non-dilutive federal research funding to accelerate commercialization, including a U.S. Navy STTR Phase I proposal with Virginia Tech’s MICS Group.
- Lattrex’s flagship innovation, Kyttar, is a clockless, massively parallel processor built from a homogeneous array of self-timed compute cells that communicate without a global clock. By allowing only active cells to consume power while programming DSP functions directly from GNU Radio flowgraphs instead of traditional HDL, Kyttar enables scalable, low-power, many-channel signal processing for software-defined radio, radar, defense communications, spectrum monitoring, and future wireless systems, with its first 120-cell prototype currently progressing toward first silicon.
- Chuck McClish earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where he developed the rigorous engineering foundation that shaped his approach to semiconductor innovation. He later strengthened his professional reputation by publishing three technical papers at DVCon, receiving the 2023 Best Paper Presentation Award, and contributing to the IEEE 1800-2023 SystemVerilog standard through his work on Real Value Constraints and Coverage.
- Chuck spent fifteen years at Microchip Technology Inc. contributing across both 8-bit and 32-bit product families while gaining hands-on experience throughout nearly the entire semiconductor development flow. His expertise spans RTL design, synthesis, place-and-route, static timing analysis, UVM verification, analog behavioral modeling, and EDA tool development, providing the rare end-to-end perspective that ultimately inspired him to rethink how future processors should be built.
- Rather than accepting increasingly complex synchronous chip design as inevitable, Chuck McClish stepped away from a successful engineering career to pursue a bold new vision inspired by biology. Observing how living organisms scale through millions of independent cells communicating asynchronously without centralized control, he translated those principles into a revolutionary computing architecture where computation grows organically across identical processing cells.
- Lattrex addresses one of the semiconductor industry’s emerging challenges as software-defined radio and advanced communications demand greater parallel processing within increasingly restrictive Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) constraints. Instead of forcing engineers to choose between the serial limitations of DSPs or the complexity and power overhead of FPGAs, McClish is introducing a practical third architecture that combines parallelism, scalability, and exceptional energy efficiency.
- Beyond developing breakthrough silicon, Chuck McClish is building the software ecosystem needed to accelerate adoption of asynchronous computing. Through the placeKYT development environment, GNU Radio integration, and his upcoming GRCon26 presentation, “Your Flowgraph Is the Chip: GNU Radio Compiled Straight to Silicon,” he is helping engineers design, simulate, debug, and deploy real-world signal-processing applications while making this emerging architecture more accessible to the global engineering community.
- As artificial intelligence, defense electronics, aerospace, wireless communications, and edge computing continue demanding greater performance within tighter power budgets, Lattrex’s asynchronous architecture represents an important strategic alternative for the semiconductor industry. Its homogeneous compute-cell design simplifies verification, improves scalability, enables process portability toward advanced FinFET technologies, and positions the company to become a future supplier of semiconductor intellectual property for next-generation computing platforms.
- Chuck McClish’s journey demonstrates that meaningful semiconductor innovation begins by challenging assumptions rather than accepting convention. His combination of technical mastery, entrepreneurial courage, and commitment to advancing the engineering community serves as an inspiration to aspiring engineers, innovators, and industry leaders who believe tomorrow’s breakthroughs are created by those willing to rethink today’s accepted solutions.
**Excerpts from August 2026 interview with Daniel Nenni of SemiWiki.
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