Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD) began 2026 with a significant leadership transition, appointing Fabio Necco as the new CEO. Necco joins from onsemi, where he served as Vice President and Division General Manager, bringing with him more than 25 years of experience across power electronics, application engineering, vehicle electrification, and data centre markets.
In a recent interview with Electronic Specifier, he outlined his strategic priorities, his assessment of the competitive landscape, and the direction in which he intends to take the business.
Background
Necco’s career has been defined by his work within large, established semiconductor organisations. Prior to onsemi, he held senior roles at other major corporations, and over the course of his career he has led multiple business units from early concept through to revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The decision to move into a considerably smaller, scaling company was, by his own account, a deliberate and personal one.
“I have grown several business units from concept to becoming hundreds of millions of dollars, and I have done it a few times over the years – but always within existing, established semiconductor companies. I felt like I needed a new challenge.”
Gallium nitride (GaN) technology represented a specific area of interest. Despite his breadth of experience across power semiconductor technologies, GaN was one area in which he had not yet worked directly, and CGD’s proprietary ICeGaN platform presented what he describes as a compelling opportunity.
Several months into the role, Necco reports a marked difference in the pace and visibility of decision-making compared to his previous positions in large corporations.
“Everything we do now makes an impact. Decisions are made on a day-to-day basis, and I see the impact right away. It is a very different feeling.”
Leadership structure
Necco succeeds CGD Co-Founder Giorgia Longobardi, who transitions into the role of Chief Marketing Officer while retaining her position as a Director on CGD’s Board. The structure has been designed to preserve the technical and market expertise Longobardi has accumulated since founding the company, while introducing the operational and commercial leadership that Necco brings.
“She has a PhD in GaN, and I have 25 years of experience running power semiconductor organisations. We really complement each other.”
Longobardi herself has described the appointment as placing CGD in capable hands, stating that Necco possesses the right skill set to lead the company into its next phase of growth.
Strategic refocus
Among the most significant strategic shifts under Necco’s leadership is a reallocation of focus toward the data centre market.
While automotive remains part of CGD’s portfolio, Necco has introduced a more selective approach – concentrating engagement on a smaller number of automotive customers where clear added value can be demonstrated, while substantially expanding activity in data centres.
The commercial rationale is partly a function of development timelines. Automotive programmes typically require two to three years from initial customer engagement to production, whereas data centre design cycles are considerably shorter.
“Data centres are designing architectures that will go into production six months from now. Focusing on data centres will give us access to short-term revenue.”
Beyond the revenue timing advantage, Necco identifies a strong structural alignment between the demands of the data centre market and the capabilities of CGD’s technology. As digital infrastructure expands at pace – driven in large part by the compute requirements of artificial intelligence – energy consumption within data centres has become a critical design constraint.
“Every time you have a market that is growing very fast and is going to become very big, there is always opportunity, because there is a need for many solutions and significant differentiation. Data centres are very energy-hungry, and efficiency is one of the key attributes that GaN – and particularly ICeGaN – brings. There is almost a perfect fit between the enormous energy demands of the data centre sector and the technology we provide.”
ICeGaN as a competitive differentiator
The GaN power device market is expanding rapidly but also attracting increasing competition. Necco argues that CGD’s ICeGaN technology provides a meaningful point of differentiation – specifically through its monolithic, single-chip architecture, which integrates all necessary components onto a single die.
The principal advantage this creates is ease of adoption. Engineers working with existing silicon or silicon carbide designs are able to replace those components with ICeGaN devices without undertaking a complete board redesign, reducing both the engineering effort and time-to-market associated with transitioning to GaN.
“ICeGaN offers ease of use and the ability to replace any existing solution very quickly. When customers are looking to redesign a board and they are currently using silicon or silicon carbide, they can easily swap these with GaN without a full redesign. It offers considerable flexibility and the ability to move very fast.”
Necco notes that the company has already secured customer wins that validate ICeGaN’s performance advantages in production environments, and that these early successes provide a foundation for the broader commercial expansion now underway.
Transition to solutions-oriented business model
A central element of Necco’s strategic agenda is the evolution of CGD’s commercial positioning – from a company primarily defined by its technology to one that leads with customer solutions. In his assessment, this transition is a natural progression for a business that has matured beyond its early research and development phase.
“As a scale-up, we began as a pure technology play. We now have to transition from pure technology to being a genuine solution provider. We need to do considerably more in customer engagement – understanding exactly the pain points and addressing them with ICeGaN, or derivatives of ICeGaN – so that we are providing a solution and leveraging our technology to deliver it.”
Necco’s career trajectory affords him direct experience of each function within CGD’s organisation. He views this breadth as an asset in aligning the company’s technical capabilities with market requirements.
Outlook
Further product development activity around the ICeGaN platform is underway.
“We think ICeGaN is an extremely powerful engine, and we are building more around it. The innovation and the creativity involved in developing new solutions is the most exciting aspect of this role.”
The company has indicated that a further investment round is likely as part of its continued scaling, though no timeline or quantity has been disclosed. Founded in Cambridge in 2016, CGD completed its first external funding round in 2019.
With a differentiated technology platform, a reconstituted leadership team, and a sharpened commercial focus, the company is positioning itself to capitalise on the substantial and growing demand for high-efficiency power semiconductors across data centre, industrial, and energy infrastructure markets.
