There’s a certain kind of expertise that can’t be taught in a classroom or learned from a manual. It comes from decades of hands-on work at the intersection oftechnology and strategy, from being the person in the room who has to make the call, defend the investment, and then live with the results.
That’s the kind of expertise Ramune Nagisetty brings to PDF Solutions.
As PDF Solutions’ newest Director of Enterprise Accounts, Ramune joins us with a career that spans 29 years at Intel, a foundational role in one of the semiconductor industry’s most important technology shifts, and a front-row seat to what it actually looks like when PDF Solutions’ products enable its clients to deliver results. We sat down with her recently to learn more about her background, what drew her to PDF Solutions, and what she sees on the horizon for the industry.
Building the Foundation, Literally
Ramune’s career began where it arguably matters most: at the transistor level. As a device physicist in Intel’s logic technology development group, she spent her first decade working on the fundamental building blocks of modern chips: strain engineering, high-K metal gate, and FinFET architectures. If you’ve used a smartphone, a laptop, or any AI-powered product in the last 15 years, you’ve benefited from the kind of work Ramune was doing in those early years.
After a decade in technology development, Ramune moved into Intel Labs to lead strategic technology programs; work that reported directly to Intel’s CEO, CTO, and broader executive team. It was a significant shift, moving from atomic-level transistor physics to company-level strategy, and it gave her a perspective that few engineers ever develop: the ability to see the entire technology landscape from the ground up.
“I went from working at really the very smallest dimensions of transistors all the way up into the strategy of the company and its role in the entire industry ecosystem,” she reflects. “My perspective spanned from the bottom all the way to the top.“
The Idea That Changed an Industry
In 2010, while leading strategic programs at Intel Labs, Ramune developed a concept that would eventually reshape the entire semiconductor industry: a system-in-package architecture based on chiplets.
At the time, it was a vision. Today, it’s the foundation of virtually every high-performance chip on the market, including the AI accelerators powering the current wave of artificial intelligence.
“It has become the basis of a totally new industry-scale paradigm shift,” Ramune says. “Today, almost all high-performance chips in AI and any other kind of high-performance computing are based on advanced packaging, heterogeneous integration, and chiplets.“
Her work made her Intel’s primary industry spokesperson for the chiplet movement toward a new industry-scale ecosystem, earning her features in IEEE Spectrum, Wired, and a range of other publications. It also gave her a unique vantage point: she wasn’t just working on technology; she was advocating for an entirely new way of thinking about how chips are designed and built.
She’s quick to point out that the work isn’t finished. True cross-company chiplet interoperability, where, say, one company’s chiplets can be seamlessly integrated into another company’s products, remains largely unrealized. But the direction is set, and the industry is on the path.
Knowing PDF Solutions from the Other Side of the Table
One of the things that makes Ramune’s arrival at PDF Solutions particularly interesting is that she’s been a PDF Solutions customer for years.
While at Intel, she was tapped by senior leadership to lead the company’s engagement with PDF Solutions, a role that put her squarely in the middle of making sure PDF products were supporting Intel’s goals in developing and deploying new process nodes. She knew many of PDF Solutions’ technical leaders from across the organization long before she joined the company.
“I understood the decision-making process that customers go through,” she explains, “Now that I’m at PDF, I think PDF customers appreciate that I understand the customer perspective.“
It’s a rare thing, someone who has sat on both sides of the table and can speak to the experience of each.
What is She Working on Now?
Ramune joined PDF Solutions in December 2025 and has wasted no time getting to work. She’s actively focused on growing the company’s enterprise customer base, but one of the most compelling initiatives she’s leading is a proposal to position PDF Solutions at the center of a secure, industry-wide semiconductor collaboration platform.
The concept is rooted in something she sees as one of the biggest untapped opportunities in the industry right now: data collaboration between foundries and fabless companies.
“Today, everybody’s applying their AI models within their own limited domains of data,” she explains. “But if you have access to bigger, more interconnected data, different types of solutions can emerge. If foundry and fabless companies could collaborate, if AI models could stitch together that data, we could come up with much better solutions for design for manufacturing and beyond.“
She sees PDF Solutions as uniquely positioned to make that kind of collaboration possible. “PDF Solutions is kind of like the Switzerland of the semiconductor industry,” she says. “We’re neutral. We interact with most of the foundries, most of the fabless players, and many of the equipment manufacturers. Opportunities built on that unique position are the most interesting ones.“
The proposal is generating real interest, and Ramune is actively engaged in follow-up conversations. It’s the kind of long-horizon initiative that, if it comes together, could define a new chapter for PDF Solutions and the broader industry.
On AI, Chips, and What Comes Next
Ask Ramune about artificial intelligence in the semiconductor space, and she lights up, but not in the way you might expect. She’s not focused on AI as a product. She’s focused on AI as a manufacturing and design tool that the industry has barely begun to tap.
“Semiconductors are the foundation of AI, chips run the software, and software runs the AI algorithms,” she says. “But how much AI is actually being deployed in the process technology development, manufacturing, and design of those chips? I think it’s actually fairly limited, and there’s a lot more opportunity.“
She sees the convergence of secure data collaboration and AI as a genuine inflection point, one that could give U.S. semiconductor companies a real competitive advantage if the industry moves quickly and thoughtfully. It’s a big-picture perspective, and it’s exactly the kind of thinking PDF Solutions is eager to put to work.
A Curious Person in the Right Place
When we asked Ramune what she’d want a new colleague or a new customer to know about her, her answer was simple: she’s curious.
“PDF has a huge breadth in terms of the overall product portfolio. For a curious person, there’s a lot to learn here.”
It’s a refreshingly honest answer from someone who could easily lead with her impressive credentials. And it says something about why she fits here; PDF Solutions has always been a company where technical depth and intellectual curiosity go hand in hand.
When asked about role models, Ramune talked about her mother, an accomplished engineer with three master’s degrees- in Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science, and an accomplished career at Ford Motor Company. Ramune’s mother is a role model and hero who inspired Ramune from an early age and continued to shape her path throughout her education and career.
Outside of work, Ramune lives in Portland, OR, where she plays electric guitar and sings in two bands, writes original songs, and enjoys hiking, backcountry skiing, and gardening. She lives within walking distance of her mother and her brother’s family, which she clearly considers one of life’s better arrangements.
We’re thrilled to have Ramune on the team, and we think you’ll be hearing a lot more from her in the months ahead. If you’d like to connect with Ramune or learn more about how PDF Solutions can support your organization, reach out to our team!