board of directors

Richard L. Sanquini — Chairman of the Board

Richard L. Sanquini has served as our Chairman since November 2002 and as Acting Chief Executive Officer from December 2002 to April 2003. Mr. Sanquini retired from National Semiconductor as senior vice president in January 2000. Mr. Sanquini had been with National Semiconductor since 1980, except for between March 1989 to December 1989, when he served as president and chief executive officer of Information Storage Devices, a semiconductor company. He is presently a semiconductor industry consultant and serves on the boards of Synaptics,Inc., ZiLOG,Inc. and a number of private companies. Mr. Sanquini holds a B.Sc. in electrical engineering from the Milwaukee School of Engineering, Wisconsin.

William J. Dally — Director

Prof. Dally is the Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell professor of engineering and chairman of the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and has received numerous honors, including the IEEE Seymour Cray Award and the ACM Maurice Wilkes award. Prof. Dally currently leads projects on high-speed signaling, computer architecture, network architecture and programming systems. He has published more than 170 papers in these areas and is an author of the textbooks Digital Systems Engineering and Principles and Practices of Interconnection Networks. Prior to joining Stanford in 1997, Prof. Dally was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 11 years. He also co-founded Velio Communications, a leading provider of high-speed interconnect and switch fabric that was acquired by LSI Logic in 2004, and Stream Processors, Inc., a fabless semiconductor company providing high-performance, highly-efficient signal and image processors. Prof. Dally has a BS in electrical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute, an MS in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in computer science from the California Institute of Technology.

Henry DeNero — Director

Mr. DeNero is an independent management consultant. Previously, he was chairman and CEO of HomeSpace, Inc., a privately held mortgage and real estate services provider. Prior to that, he was executive vice president of First Data Corporation, an electronic commerce and payment services company, and vice chairman and chief financial officer of Dayton Hudson Corporation (now Target Corporation). Earlier in his career, Mr. DeNero spent 18 years at McKinsey & Company, most recently as a senior partner. Mr. DeNero currently serves as a director of Banta Corporation, Digital Insight Corporation, THQ Inc., Vignette Corporation and Western Digital Corporation.

Robert Gunst — Director

Robert Gunst brings to PortalPlayer 13 years of experience as a former board member of The Good Guys, Inc., one of the largest specialty retailers of higher-end entertainment electronics in the nation. For nine of those years, he was also president and chief executive officer of the company. Mr. Gunst is currently a private investor and serves as chairman of the board of directors of Natus Medical Incorporated, a company that engages in the development, manufacture, and marketing of products for the detection, monitoring, treatment, and tracking of common medical disorders in newborns and children. He is also a member of the Dean's Advisory Council of the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis. Previously, he served on the board of directors of AmNet Mortgage, Inc., a nationwide wholesale mortgage bank that was acquired by Wachovia Corporation in December 2005, and as chairman of the board of directors of Garden Fresh Restaurants, Inc., an operator of 97 Souplantation and Sweet Tomatoes restaurants nationally, which was acquired by Centre Partners in early 2004. Prior to his tenure at The Good Guys!, Mr. Gunst held management and board positions at Shaklee Corporation, La Petite Boulangerie, Inc. and PepsiCo Foods International, both subsidiaries of PepsiCo, Inc., Victoria Station Incorporated and The First National Bank of Chicago.

Tomas Isaksson — Director

Mr. Isaksson, a 27 year veteran of the international wireless communications industry, spent 11 years at Vodafone, the world’s leading mobile wireless communications company. Most recently, he was chief executive and chairman of the management board of Vodafone Netherlands, a subsidiary of the Vodafone Group. During his tenure at Vodafone, Mr. Isaksson was also chief executive of the Americas Region and president of Vodafone Global Platform and Internet Services, as well as the chief executive officer of Europolitan Holdings AB, a Swedish mobile operator. Earlier in his career, Mr. Isaksson spent 16 years at Ericsson, a world-leading provider of telecommunications equipment and related services to mobile and fixed network operators, most recently as president and chief executive officer of Ericsson Radio Systems Inc. Mr. Isaksson has served on the board of directors of many companies, including Europolitan Holdings AB, Verizon Wireless and Telecel.

Gary Johnson — President , Chief Executive Officer and Director

Gary Johnson has served as our President, Chief Executive Officer and director since April 2003. Prior to joining us, from March 2002 to April 2003, Mr. Johnson served as president and chief executive officer of Z-Force Communications, Inc., a network storage technology company. Mr. Johnson also served as chairman of the board of Z-Force Communications, Inc. from March 2001 to March 2002. From February 2000 to May 2001, Mr. Johnson served as president and chief executive officer of Nanuk Networks, a wireless technology company. From December 1997 to June 1999, Mr. Johnson served as vice chairman of S3 Incorporated, a provider of multimedia semiconductors. From August 1996 to December 1997, Mr. Johnson served as president and chief executive officer of S3 Incorporated after joining them in July 1994. From September 1986 to July 1994, Mr. Johnson held various management positions at National Semiconductor, a semiconductor company. Mr. Johnson holds a B.Sc. in electronic engineering from De Montfort University, England.

Shahan Soghikian — Director

Shahan D. Soghikian has served as one of our directors since March 2004. Since January 1992, Mr. Soghikian has been a partner with JPMorgan Partners, the private equity investment arm of J.P. Morgan Chase. Prior to joining JPMorgan Partners in 1990, Mr. Soghikian served as a member of the mergers and acquisitions groups of Bankers Trust and Prudential Securities, Inc., financial services companies. Mr. Soghikian holds a B.A. in biology from Pitzer College and an M.B.A. from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.

James Whims — Director

James L. Whims has served as one of our directors since February 2002. Mr. Whims has been a managing partner of TechFund Partners, an information technology investment firm, since August 1998. Mr. Whims is a director of THQ, Inc., a publicly traded company. Mr. Whims holds a B.A. in economics and communications from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. in finance and marketing from the University of Arizona.