Accelerate the development of innovative materials and boost production yields
Artificial intelligence to automatically analyze metrology and defectivity data
A Team of experts
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Johann Foucher
Chief Executive Officer
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Christophe Ballan
VP Sales
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Herve Ozdoba
VP Engineering
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Sergio Martinez
VP Technology
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Ron Burns
VP Business Development
Johann Foucher
Chief Executive Officer
CEO & Member of the Supervisory Board – is a business executive and entrepreneur with 17 years of experience in the semiconductor industry and advanced process-control. He is the CEO and co-founder of POLLEN Metrology, the first smart process-control software company powered by a revolutionary technology based on deep learning and data fusion. Prior co-founding POLLEN, Johann was assignee at IBM (NY) where he has jointly developed new nanometrology methodologies for sub-30nm node technologies. He has introduced the hybrid metrology concept to get the best from each complementary characterization technique. Before that, he was a researcher and project manager at CEA/LETI institute in the field of nanometrology for semiconductor industry. He has published more than 70 papers and gave numerous invited talks at international conferences and has been granted nine patents. Johann holds a PhD degree in plasma physics applied to advanced semiconductor CMOS gate etching from University Grenoble Alpes and an engineering degree in electronics and plasmas physics from Polytech Orleans.
Christophe Ballan
VP Sales
Christophe has more than 25 years of professional experience creating and leading international sales teams and strategies in various continents. His technical experience ranges from embedded systems to EDA (Electronic Design Automation) to cybersecurity. Christophe graduated with an MBA from ESCP Business school in France, was an exchange student at Chuo University in Japan and attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business AEA program in California. Besides his native French language Christophe speaks fluently English, Japanese and German, having lived or spent several years in the US, Germany and Japan.
Herve Ozdoba
VP Engineering
Hervé Ozdoba joined the Pollen team in 2019 as Technical Leader C++. He was involved in strengthening the team of developers and in the design of the algorithm library dedicated to metrology, defectivity and process optimization. Subsequently, Hervé initiated and contributed to the implementation of the software development kit (SDK) of the Smart3 platform allowing users to extend the functionality of the product by adding external modules in Python or C++. Today, vice-president in charge of software engineering, Hervé is responsible for the backend, frontend and algorithmic developer teams as well as the Devops/IT team. He holds an engineering degree in mathematical and mechanical modeling from Enseirb Matmeca.
Sergio Martinez
VP Technology
Sergio Martinez has joined Pollen in 2016 as a data scientist. He has been actively involved in developing machine learning algorithms that are integrated into Smart3 product portfolio. After managing several research projects, Sergio became Director for Research and Application from 2020 to 2022. Now Sergio is Vice President of Technology to manage the teams in charge of Research, Application, Support and Quality Assurance. He was laureated with the prestigious scholarship Erasmus Mundus for a Master Degree in Computer Vision and Robotics. He holds a Ph.D. in Life and Health Sciences from the University Paris-Saclay, focusing on using machine learning to detect early forms of cancer in the stomach.
Ron Burns
VP Business Development
Is a proven business executive and technology advisor with more than 25 years of sales and marketing experience in the global electronics, software and professional services industries. Prior to joining Pollen, Ron led a Product Solutions Sales Team for Synopsys’ Verification Group. Ron joined Synopsys in 2012 through its acquisition of EVE, the leader in standard FPGA-based emulation, where he served as VP of Sales. Prior to EVE, Ron held leadership roles at Wipro, Cadence, Siemens/Mentor and several start-up technology ventures. Ron holds a BSEE degree from the University of South Florida and an MBA from Santa Clara University. Ron is a member of the Band of Angels, as Silicon Valley-based angel investment organization. He also serves as an advisor to new ventures and mentor to multiple Silicon Valley accelerators.
The History of Pollen Metrology
- Pollen Today
- International Development of Pollen
- Birth of Pollen
Today, Pollen Metrology is a French deeptech company specialized in Software of Artificial Intelligence oriented to optimize the production of innovative materials. The proprietary artificial intelligence framework makes possible the analysis automation of data flows, which are required for the development and production of microprocessors, cosmetics, drugs of the future, etc. The data handled daily by our customers are images of electron, optical or acoustic microscopes, diffraction signals, process parameters (temperature, pressure, etc.).
Pollen offers to its customers the expertise of its multicultural team from different backgrounds (metrology, physics, computer science, image processing, deep learning, data fusion) to provide an artificial intelligence technology that allows them to facilitate and speed the development of these unique materials.
Pollen is currently in a phase of strong growth internationally, particularly in semiconductor, chemical, AR/VR materials and electronic display materials
POLLEN set-up collaborations with the greatest french laboratories including the french national metrology institute (LNE), various laboratories of the University Grenoble Alpes (UGA) as well as various manufacturers of chemistry and semiconductor industry to model the core of the technology SMART1 from 2014 to 2017.
In 2017, thanks to a unique breakthrough technology (validated by the first customers) and the creation of a dream team (made up of very high-level experts in complementary fields of data science), POLLEN raises 2 million euros from XAnge, Kreaxi and private investors for its international deployment.
Founded in 2014 by Johann Foucher, Aurélien Labrosse and Alexandre Dervillé. This French deep tech, whose concept dates back to 2010, is the result of 15 years of experience at CEA, CNRS and IBM in the field of process control for the semiconductor industry by its co-founder Johann Foucher. After a period of incubation within Gate1 (now SATT Linksium) from 2013 to 2014, three DNA strands, namely: physics (Johann), computer science (Aurelien) and applied mathematics ( Alexandre) meet and decide to undertake the transition from the technological concept to a disruptive software technology of artificial intelligence and data fusion. The objective is to develop a sufficiently generic technology that can be applied to any industrial field developing innovative materials (semiconductor, 3D printing, cosmetics, building, transport …).