Hi!
I’m Jonah Probell.
You can reach me at (first name)@probell.com
Professionally
My resume is available on LinkedIn.
I am a professional angel investor and patent strategist.
I have worked for 7 startups and small companies, two that I co-founded. My companies have been sued for patent infringement and lost, sued and won, and avoided being sued. I built a small patent portfolio that was sold for $50M and a large one that supported late-stage financing at 100x revenue.
I am currently looking for deals in AI, biotech, and SaaS types of business. But I will consider any company that looks like it has an unusually good chance of an unusually good return. In the past, I have led engineering, sales, marketing, and patenting in chip design, video signal processing, natural language, and AI software.
As an investor, I offer patenting help to portfolio companies and some others. That can include harvesting inventions, drafting and prosecution, patentability searching, and due diligence on validity and market value.
Personally
I seek to broaden my horizons. I often learn everything that I can about something new. Wikipedia is my favorite web site. I enjoy technical writing and teaching because that's the best way to learn a subject thoroughly.
I love that I have diverse friends and acquaintances. I view strangers as friends that I have yet to meet. I enjoy helping others. I will take either side for the sake of a good debate.
I enjoy cycling and tend a fine garden. I watch live theater but not television. I like cloudy weather and wind. I am selective about what organizations I join.
I love to travel, have spent time in most US states and many nations, and have a friend in each one. Though I wander, I spend most of my time in Silicon Valley.
I enjoy trying new languages, but I know only one fluently. Lately, I am studying Mandarin and reading traditional Chinese characters. I enjoy limericks, wordplay, thoughtful sayings, and general trivia. I like studying maps and have a good sense of direction. I drive a stick shift and can back up a trailer.
If your name is Probell, please let me know, especially if you are interested in having an email address ending in @probell.com. Otherwise, just enjoy this site.
Publications
Here is a list of some things that I have written. You can also search for me on Google Scholar and Google Patents.
Neural Generation of Blocks for Video Coding paper arXiv 2020
中小テック企業の特許取得戦略 −シリコンバレーの特許専門家が思う 日常業務の押さえどころ article Tokugikon 2017
Patenting for the Small Company – Third Edition book Amazon 2017
The Rubber Jigsaw Puzzle: Floorplanning for Network-on-chip conference paper SNUG 2015
Slash SoC power consumption in the interconnect magazine article EDN 2014
Midpoint at 237 City Council Packet letter to city council San Jose city planning department 2014
Demand-based Scheduling using NoC Probes conference paper unpublished 2013
Endianness technical brief unpublished
Power and Area Benefits of Modular Interconnect Design white paper Arteris web site 2012
Critical word first or Sequential cache miss refill policy white paper unpublished 2011
The Growing Cost of Wires white paper ARM Technology Conference 2010
NoC Advantages for SoC Prototyping on Big FPGA Boards white paper Arteris 2010
The Conundrum of Peer-to-Peer Video Distribution long article EE Times Signal Processing DesignLine 2010
MIPS in Handsets – Why Not? article EE Times 2009
Synergies could trigger a Synopsys-ARM merger article EE Times 2009
6 critical keys to IP licensing success article EE Times 2009
Processor architecture not a factor for low-power mobile systems long article Embedded Systems Design 2009
Who Killed My Battery? short article DSP DesignLine 2009
Video processing pipeline design article EE Times DSP DesignLine 2008
A Designer’s Guide to HD Video Pre- and Post-Processing white paper Tensilica 2008
Truly Understanding Low-Power Multimedia Chip Design conference presentation Portable Design Conference 2008
Frame Processing Time Deviations in Video Processors white paper Tensilica 2008
Selecting Video IP for SOC Design: Ask the Tough Questions webcast EDN 2007
Letter to the editor: IP pros, cons magazine article EE Times 2007
Minimizing Power Consumption in a Mobile Video Subsystem magazine article Portable Design 2007
A Brief History of Video Coding white paper ARC 2007
Memory bandwidth metrics for video processing magazine article DSP DesignLine
Ghosts of Video Processors Past, Present, and Future magazine article unpublished 2006
ARCHITECTURES: Multimedia platform stresses flexibility magazine article quotation EE Times 2006
Integrating IP in Multicore DSP/Processor SoCs conference panel Global Signal Processing Conference 2006
System Design Tricks for Low-Power Video Processing conference presentation Global Signal Processing Conference 2006
System Design Tricks for Low-Power Video Processing conference paper Global Signal Processing Conference 2006
Architecture Considerations for Multi-Format Programmable Video Processors journal article IEEE Journal of Signal Processing Systems for Signal, Image, and Video Technology 2006
Architecture Considerations for Multi-Format Programmable Video Processors conference paper Picture Coding Symposium 2006
The Trade-Offs of Software Programmability in Video Processors conference panel DesignCon 2005
Processor system that allows for simultaneous access by multiple requestors to a target with multiple ports patent application US Patent & Trademark Office 2005
Data movement within a processor patent application US Patent & Trademark Office 2005
Digital Video to Come Alive in 2005 (article text) magazine article TechOnLine 2004
What Choices Make a Killer Video Processor Architecture (presentation slides) conference presentation Global Signal Processing Conference 2004
What Choices Make a Killer Video Processor Architecture (presentation slides with audio narration) conference presentation Global Signal Processing Conference 2004
What Choices Make a Killer Video Processor Architecture (published paper) conference paper Global Signal Processing Conference 2004
Processor Architecture for High Performance Video Decode (article text) article Video/Imaging DesignLine 2004
The Ultra Data UD3000: A Next Generation Video Processor Core conference presentation Embedded Processor Forum 2004
Improving Application Performance with Instruction Set Architecture Extensions to Embedded Processors conference paper DesignCon 2004
LX5380 RISC-DSP for New Internet Applications conference presentation Microprocessor Forum 2001
Considerations for the Design of a Reusable SOC Hardware/Software Development Board magazine article ICD Magazine 2001
Verification of Lexra Processor Cores conference presentation DesignCon 2000
High-Performance RISC-DSP for IP Licensing conference presentation Microprocessor Forum 1999
Identifying Bacteria by Spectral Analysis research report Westinghouse Science Talent Search 1994
Good luck