Author: Techtime

Innoviz Appoints Former Rafael CEO Yoav Har-Even to Its Board of Directors

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By Yohai Schwiger

Innoviz Technologies has appointed Yoav Har-Even to its Board of Directors. Har-Even replaces James Sheridan, who stepped down after Perception Capital Partners’ right to appoint a representative to the board expired.

According to the company, Har-Even’s extensive experience in defense, autonomous systems, and business development will help accelerate Innoviz’s expansion into the defense and homeland security markets. Chairman Amichai Steinberg described these sectors as one of the company’s key strategic growth engines for the coming years.

Har-Even is widely regarded as one of Israel’s leading defense industry executives. He served as President and CEO of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems from 2016 to 2024, overseeing the company’s international expansion and the development and commercialization of advanced defense systems, including Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Trophy active protection system. Prior to Rafael, he served for decades in the Israel Defense Forces, retiring with the rank of Major General after holding several senior positions, including Head of the Operations Directorate.

Since leaving Rafael, Har-Even has expanded his business activities. He was appointed CEO of energy company PowerGen Energy, joined the advisory board of Ondas Autonomous Systems—a defense technology holding company that has recently completed several acquisitions in Israel—and, in early 2026, became Chairman of the Board of Sindiana Technologies. With his appointment to Innoviz, he adds another strategic board role to his portfolio.

The appointment comes as Innoviz is actively expanding beyond its traditional automotive business. For years, the company was identified almost exclusively with the automotive LiDAR market. Over the past year, however, it has been building a second growth engine focused on defense, perimeter security, and the protection of critical infrastructure.

A major milestone in that strategy was the launch of InnovizSMART, a version of the company’s LiDAR technology tailored for defense, perimeter security, and infrastructure protection applications. Innoviz has since announced its first commercial partnerships in the sector, including an agreement with Israeli defense technology company Kela, which develops AI-powered operational systems, as well as a collaboration with the Drive Group on the Barak LightGuard platform for border security and critical infrastructure protection. Under that agreement, Drive placed an initial purchase order and set a sales target of approximately $20 million by the end of 2027.

Against this backdrop, Har-Even’s appointment appears to be part of a broader strategic shift rather than an isolated governance change. Beyond his executive experience, he brings deep familiarity with defense procurement processes, government customers, and global defense markets. For Innoviz, his addition further strengthens the board in line with the company’s evolving strategic direction.

What Does the Appointment of a Director Actually Mean?

Announcements of board appointments are common, yet their significance is often overlooked. A director is not involved in a company’s day-to-day operations or routine management decisions. Instead, the board is responsible for setting the company’s strategic direction, overseeing management, approving major corporate decisions, and contributing experience, industry expertise, and valuable business relationships. As a result, companies often recruit former CEOs, senior industry executives, investors, or recognized experts in areas they view as strategic priorities.

Board appointments can also signal where a company is heading. When a semiconductor company appoints a manufacturing expert—or when an autonomous vehicle technology company recruits the former CEO of one of the world’s leading defense contractors—the message may extend well beyond corporate governance. From the candidate’s perspective, joining a board is rarely a casual decision. While it is a non-executive role, it carries legal responsibilities and reputational risk, making such appointments a meaningful indication of confidence in the company’s long-term strategy.

Photo: Yoav Har-Even

Eco Wave Power Raises Capital at a Premium, but the Road from Pilot Projects to the Energy Industry Remains Long

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By Yohai Schwiger

Eco Wave Power, the Israeli company developing wave energy technology, this week announced a $4 million private placement with an institutional investor. In an unusual move, the offering was priced at $10 per ADS, representing a 10.7% premium to the Nasdaq closing price. The investor also received warrants exercisable at $12 per ADS, approximately 33% above the market price.

The timing is no coincidence. Eco Wave Power’s shares have gained roughly 54% since the beginning of the year, giving the company a market capitalization of approximately $53 million. In effect, the company took advantage of the strong share performance to strengthen its balance sheet under relatively favorable terms, avoiding the discounts that typically accompany capital raises by small public companies.

According to the company, the proceeds will be used to expand commercial operations and advance a broader strategic vision: positioning wave energy as an “energy layer” for AI infrastructure and data centers. However, a closer look at the company’s 2025 annual report paints a more nuanced picture, illustrating how far it still has to go before translating technological promise into meaningful commercial business.

Eco Wave Power has developed a system that installs floating devices on existing breakwaters, piers, and coastal structures. The movement of ocean waves drives a hydraulic mechanism connected to a generator, producing electricity without the need for large offshore installations. According to the company, leveraging existing coastal infrastructure significantly reduces both construction and maintenance costs compared with conventional offshore wave-energy systems.

Commercially, however, the gap between vision and reality remains substantial. The company’s annual report shows 2025 revenue of just $38,000, down from $168,000 in the previous year. Net loss totaled approximately $3.7 million, while operating cash flow was negative by roughly $3 million. At year-end, Eco Wave Power held approximately $6 million in cash, meaning the latest financing adds another $4 million to its balance sheet—improving its financial position, but falling well short of funding large-scale commercial deployment.

The financial figures also raise an interesting question about the company’s pace of progress. On one hand, annual cash burn of roughly $3 million is relatively modest for an energy infrastructure company, suggesting a lean operating model focused on technology development and partnerships, while major capital investments are expected to come later or be financed by project partners. On the other hand, it may also indicate that the company has yet to reach the stage where significant investments are required to build commercial power facilities. After nearly two decades of development, this remains one of the key questions raised by the annual report: do the relatively low expenditures reflect operational efficiency, or simply the fact that commercialization is still advancing slowly?

A similar gap is evident in the company’s project pipeline. Eco Wave Power reports a portfolio totaling 404.7 megawatts, yet the annual report makes clear that most of these projects consist of preliminary agreements, memoranda of understanding, and development initiatives rather than binding customer orders or revenue-generating facilities.

In practice, the number of active projects is far smaller. The demonstration plant in Jaffa, connected to Israel’s power grid since 2023, continues to serve primarily as a testing and development platform. In the United States, the company launched a pilot project at the Port of Los Angeles in 2025 together with AltaSea and Shell Marine Renewable Energy, but this, too, remains a demonstration site intended to validate the technology rather than a commercial-scale power plant.

The company’s most significant milestone lies in Portugal, where its first commercial project is planned. Yet the timeline itself illustrates the challenges of moving from pilot projects to commercialization. The original concession agreement was signed in 2020, grid connection approval was received in 2021, and only in March 2024 did the company obtain the regulatory license allowing the project to move forward. Even today, the facility has yet to begin generating electricity, while the annual report notes that damage to the site’s breakwater could further delay progress.

Over the past year, Eco Wave Power has also sought to align itself with the artificial intelligence boom. The company introduced its WaveGPT initiative, partnered with researchers at U.S. universities, joined the NVIDIA Inception program, and was featured on NVIDIA’s official blog for its use of digital twins and AI tools to optimize energy facility management.

Here, too, however, it is important to distinguish between technological capability and marketing narrative. WaveGPT does not alter the company’s method of electricity generation. Instead, it is designed to improve plant operations through data analytics, predictive maintenance, simulation, and performance optimization. These capabilities could become valuable once dozens or hundreds of facilities are in operation, but they do not address the company’s primary challenge: deploying commercial-scale power plants.

Eco Wave Power has also positioned itself as a potential energy supplier for data centers—one of today’s fastest-growing infrastructure markets due to the rapid expansion of AI. Yet a fundamental question remains. The company’s existing installations operate at capacities ranging from several hundred kilowatts to only a few megawatts, while modern data centers typically require tens or even hundreds of megawatts. Even if the technology proves commercially viable, it is therefore likely to serve as a complementary energy source alongside the electrical grid, natural gas, solar, or wind power, rather than as a primary power solution for AI infrastructure.

Ultimately, Eco Wave Power’s annual report presents a company with an intriguing engineering concept, growing international recognition, and genuine technological potential—but one that is still searching for its commercial breakthrough. After more than a decade of development, the central question is no longer whether electricity can be generated from ocean waves, but whether it can be produced at commercial scale, at competitive cost, and at the speed required by a rapidly evolving global energy market. For now, the company’s financial results suggest that answer has yet to emerge.

XTEND Advances to Next Stage of Pentagon’s Drone Dominance Initiative

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By Yohai Schwiger

Israeli drone technology company XTEND has advanced to Gauntlet II of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Drone Dominance program after being selected as one of just 19 companies from an initial field of 49 participants. During the next phase, scheduled for August at Fort Carson, Colorado, the company will demonstrate its STRIKER drone system while proving its ability to manufacture and deliver operational systems at industrial scale—a critical milestone toward participating in one of the Pentagon’s most ambitious drone procurement efforts.

The announcement, however, represents more than another achievement for XTEND. Drone Dominance provides a window into how the U.S. military is reshaping its approach to drone acquisition. Drawing lessons from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the Pentagon is rebuilding America’s drone industrial base around a new principle: battlefield advantage depends not only on superior technology, but also on the ability to produce it rapidly and in large quantities.

Not Another Development Program—A Manufacturing Revolution

For years, the United States relied on sophisticated and expensive unmanned systems developed over lengthy, multi-year programs costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Recent conflicts have demonstrated that this model no longer matches the pace of modern warfare.

Small, inexpensive drones have become among the most influential weapons on today’s battlefield. They are affordable, easy to operate, rapidly upgradeable, and can be manufactured in volumes far beyond those of traditional weapon systems.

Against this backdrop, the Department of Defense launched Drone Dominance, an initiative designed to rapidly identify promising companies, evaluate their technologies, and transition them into military suppliers within months rather than years. The program is estimated to be worth roughly $1 billion and is expected to lead to procurement of tens of thousands of drones over the coming years.

Unlike traditional defense competitions, the Pentagon is no longer selecting only the best-performing drone. Participants must also demonstrate rapid manufacturing capability, resilient supply chains, scalable serial production, and the ability to evolve from innovative startups into reliable industrial suppliers.

A Test of Industry, Not Just Technology

The program’s first phase took place at Camp Grayling, Michigan, where the U.S. Army evaluated drone performance across a range of operational scenarios during both day and night.

The 19 companies advancing to Gauntlet II now face a fundamentally different challenge. Rather than showcasing prototypes, they must prove that their systems are ready for mass production, can be delivered quickly and at scale, and meet the demanding standards of the U.S. defense supply chain.

In effect, this is a test of industrial capability as much as technological innovation.

The Finalists Tell the Story

The shortlist combines established defense contractors with a new generation of drone companies. Alongside well-known names such as AeroVironment, Kratos, and Teal Drones are younger firms including Neros, Ascent AeroSystems, Ukraine’s General Cherry, and Israel’s XTEND.

The composition of the finalists reflects a broader shift in Pentagon thinking. Rather than relying primarily on traditional defense primes, the Department of Defense is increasingly looking to companies specializing in tactical drones, autonomy, and technologies developed at the pace demanded by rapidly evolving battlefields.

It is also notable that although the initiative aims to strengthen America’s domestic manufacturing base, several of the selected technologies originate abroad. XTEND is the only Israeli company to reach Gauntlet II, joined by firms with Ukrainian and European roots. The message is clear: the Pentagon wants manufacturing to take place in the United States but is willing to source innovation from anywhere in the world.

Lessons From Recent Battlefields

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine served as the primary catalyst for the Pentagon’s strategic shift. The conflict demonstrated how inexpensive FPV drones, produced in the thousands, could reshape the battlefield and inflict significant damage even on forces equipped with advanced and costly weapons.

More recently, the confrontation with Iran highlighted another critical challenge. Large-scale drone and missile attacks forced the United States and its allies to employ interceptors costing hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of dollars apiece. Beyond their high cost, these conflicts exposed how quickly interceptor inventories can be depleted while replacement production remains comparatively slow.

As a result, the Pentagon is seeking not only more capable drones but also platforms that can be manufactured rapidly, at scale, and at relatively low cost. The emphasis is shifting toward serial production, autonomy, resilience against electronic warfare, and the ability to replenish depleted inventories quickly.

For XTEND, advancing to Gauntlet II represents more than another technological milestone. The company already supplies systems to U.S. defense organizations, but Drone Dominance could position it within a much broader effort to build the next generation of drone suppliers for the U.S. military.

More broadly, the program illustrates a profound shift in American defense strategy: in the age of drones, military superiority is measured not only by the performance of individual systems, but also by the industrial capacity to manufacture thousands of them rapidly, affordably, and at the pace demanded by modern attritional warfare.

Phinergy Prepares for Mass Production of Aluminum-Air Backup Generators

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By Yohai Schwiger

Shares of Phinergy rose about 8% on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange today (as of 1:00 p.m.) after the company announced the signing of a strategic memorandum of understanding with a U.S.-based global manufacturing and assembly company, paving the way for mass production of its aluminum-air backup power systems for data centers.

While Phinergy did not disclose the identity of its manufacturing partner, it said the company generates billions of dollars in annual revenue and ranks among the world’s leading providers of advanced manufacturing and supply chain services. Under the agreement, Phinergy plans to begin production at a capacity of approximately 300 megawatts per year—equivalent, according to the company, to roughly $300 million in annual sales—before expanding to multiple gigawatts annually.

Phinergy develops aluminum-air generators designed to replace diesel generators as backup power systems for data centers and other critical infrastructure. The technology generates electricity through an electrochemical reaction between aluminum plates and oxygen from the air, eliminating on-site combustion and emissions. According to the company, the systems can provide backup power for several days, with operating time extended simply by replacing the aluminum plates.

Under the agreement, Phinergy will continue manufacturing its proprietary core components, which contain the company’s key intellectual property, while the U.S. partner will be responsible for final system assembly during high-volume production. The model mirrors the manufacturing strategy adopted by many hardware companies, enabling rapid production scaling without the need to build large, capital-intensive manufacturing facilities.

Although the company has not identified its partner, its description suggests it could be one of the world’s major contract manufacturers, such as Jabil, Flex, or Sanmina, all of which specialize in producing complex systems for the data center, energy, and electronics industries.

The announcement aligns with Phinergy’s broader strategic shift toward the rapidly growing data center market, fueled by the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence. Last year, the company’s aluminum-air technology was selected to participate in a validation project led by the Net Zero Innovation Hub consortium, whose members include Google and Microsoft, to evaluate next-generation backup power solutions for data centers.

Should the validation program lead to commercial deployments, manufacturing capacity is expected to become a decisive competitive advantage. The new memorandum of understanding is intended to address precisely that challenge—not only proving that the technology works, but demonstrating that it can be manufactured at the scale of hundreds of megawatts, and eventually multiple gigawatts per year, as required by the world’s largest data center operators.

D-Fend Adds Complementary Drone Technology to Motorola’s Portfolio

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Motorola Solutions’ acquisition of D-Fend Solutions, headquartered in Ra’anana, Israel, is part of a broader strategy to build a comprehensive portfolio of communications and counter-drone technologies for military, public safety and enterprise applications. Last August, Motorola acquired U.S.-based Silvus Technologies for approximately $4.4 billion. Silvus develops broadband wireless networking technology and is a leading supplier of tactical communication networks used to operate unmanned aerial systems.

Once the D-Fend acquisition is completed, Motorola will Motorola will combine two highly complementary technologies for the drone market. Silvus provides resilient, secure wireless networking for the operation of military drones, while D-Fend offers technology for the safe detection, identification and controlled takeover of unauthorized drones. In Motorola’s investor presentation, the company identifies the primary market for Silvus as military applications, while positioning D-Fend mainly in the enterprise and public safety sectors. However, given the rapid evolution of drone warfare, that distinction may ultimately become less clear.

Taking Control Through Cyber Technology

Founded in 2017 by CEO Zohar Halachmi, CTO Asaf Munster, and Chief Product Officer Yaniv Benbenishti, D-Fend operates in the Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-UAS) market. The company developed a counter-drone solution that relies on cyber technology instead of the traditional RF jamming or GPS spoofing.

Its approach is based on passive monitoring of RF signals and signal analysis techniques derived from the cybersecurity domain. Once the system detects the RF link, it decodes the drone’s communication protocol and telemetry data. From this information, it extracts critical details such as the drone’s identity, classification, precise location, and even the location of its operator.

D-Fend’s EnforceAir system can also operate actively by taking control of an unauthorized drone and neutralizing it through cyber (protocol-level) control, without the need for kinetic measures or physical interception.

In 2024, the company’s technology received a significant validation when the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officially approved that its counter-drone system is safe for use at civilian airports. The technology has since been deployed operationally and is now used by government agencies, public safety organizations, and commercial customers.

According to the company, its systems have been deployed in several thousand installations across more than 30 countries. Over the past three years, D-Fend has achieved annual revenue growth of approximately 50%, and is expected to generate approximately $185 million in revenue in 2026. The acquisition is expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2026.

“This May Be the Fastest ASIC Development Cycle Ever Achieved”

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By Yohai Schwiger

OpenAI and Broadcom have unveiled Jalapeño, the first custom AI accelerator the two companies have developed together. The application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is designed for AI inference—the stage in which a trained model generates responses to users—and marks the first step in OpenAI’s strategy to build its own AI computing infrastructure and reduce its dependence on NVIDIA accelerators.

According to the companies, Jalapeño was designed specifically for the workloads of large language models and agentic AI applications. Rather than training models, the chip is optimized for inference, where most of OpenAI’s compute demand now resides. The company says early silicon has demonstrated significant improvements in performance per watt, a critical metric given the enormous cost of operating large-scale AI models.

For OpenAI, the project is part of a broader strategy to control every layer of its AI stack—from the models themselves to the hardware that runs them. As OpenAI President Greg Brockman explained, the company has “a deep understanding of our workloads,” allowing it to build hardware tailored specifically to its own AI infrastructure instead of relying solely on general-purpose accelerators.

The new hardware platform extends well beyond the chip itself. OpenAI said the project combines its own accelerator architecture with Broadcom’s expertise in ASIC implementation, networking and connectivity technologies, alongside Celestica’s capabilities in designing boards, racks and complete data center systems. The announcement signals that OpenAI’s objective is not merely to develop a single processor, but to establish a full computing platform for future generations of AI models.

Following tape-out, Jalapeño is now undergoing silicon validation and early testing ahead of deployment in AI servers built by Celestica and eventually integrated into OpenAI’s data center infrastructure. The company describes Jalapeño as “the first step in a multi-generation compute platform,” suggesting that additional generations of custom AI accelerators are already on the roadmap.

A New Era of Accelerated Chip Development?

Yet the most significant aspect of the announcement may not be the chip itself, but how quickly it was developed.

In their official announcement, OpenAI and Broadcom stated that Jalapeño was developed “from initial design to manufacturing tape-out in just nine months,” adding that the project “represents what may be the fastest ASIC development cycle ever achieved in high-performance advanced semiconductors.”

For the semiconductor industry, that is an extraordinary claim. Developing an advanced chip typically takes between 18 and 24 months—and often longer—because of the complexity of architecture design, verification, optimization and manufacturing preparation. Completing the process in just nine months represents a dramatic reduction in development time.

The companies attribute this accelerated schedule to three key factors: close collaboration between the OpenAI and Broadcom engineering teams, Broadcom’s extensive experience in custom silicon development, and “the use of OpenAI models to accelerate parts of the design and optimization process.” While the companies have not disclosed exactly which engineering tasks were assisted by AI, this marks one of the first public acknowledgments by a leading AI developer that its own models were used to accelerate the development of advanced semiconductor hardware.

Industry analysts believe this could be the broader significance of the announcement. Until now, AI has primarily been associated with software development, content creation and data analysis. Jalapeño suggests that AI is beginning to play a role in designing the very chips on which future AI systems will run. As one post-announcement analysis argued, the real question is not whether Jalapeño is a successful chip, but whether nine-month development cycles could become the new standard for advanced semiconductor design.

If that proves to be the case, the implications could be far-reaching. Shorter development cycles would allow chipmakers to iterate more rapidly, update architectures more frequently and align hardware innovation with the relentless pace of AI model development. In other words, AI may soon accelerate not only software creation, but also the development of the semiconductor infrastructure on which it depends—potentially marking one of the most significant shifts in the chip industry in years.

Avnet ASIC to Manage Production of RAAAM Memory Technology at TSMC

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Israeli startup RAAAM Memory Technologies has selected Avnet ASIC Israel to manage the manufacturing of its proprietary Gain-Cell Random Access Memory (GCRAM) technology, which is designed to address one of the biggest bottlenecks in modern processors: embedded SRAM memory.

Under the agreement, Avnet ASIC will serve as the Value Chain Aggregator (VCA) for production on TSMC’s 2nm process technology. The company will be responsible for adapting RAAAM’s design to TSMC’s manufacturing flow, while also providing engineering support, production management and process integration.

Avnet ASIC is an ASIC and SoC design and manufacturing center operating as a business unit of Avnet Silica, which is part of global distributor Avnet. Established about 35 years ago, the company has completed hundreds of semiconductor projects in Israel and abroad. It holds TSMC’s official VCA certification, has extensive experience with 3nm technologies and early access to the foundry’s upcoming 2nm manufacturing platform.

The companies said RAAAM’s technology is currently undergoing qualification and has already been integrated into a customer test chip that completed tape-out in March 2026.

RAAAM’s GCRAM is an embedded memory technology intended to replace the SRAM blocks currently integrated into processors. Because fetching data from external memory is roughly 100 times slower than transferring data within the chip, processors rely on large on-chip SRAM caches to store frequently accessed information. However, SRAM consumes a significant amount of silicon area—sometimes accounting for nearly half of the die.

According to RAAAM, conventional SRAM is becoming increasingly difficult to scale for future semiconductor nodes. The company says GCRAM can reduce silicon area by approximately 50% while lowering memory power consumption by as much as 10x, all while remaining compatible with standard CMOS manufacturing processes.

An Israeli-Swiss collaboration

RAAAM was founded in 2021 by four VLSI researchers from Bar-Ilan University and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. The company has received support from the European Union, the Intel Ignite startup accelerator and private investors, including NXP.

The company’s technology is based on a three-transistor gain-cell memory architecture, compared with the six-transistor cells used in conventional SRAM. The approach occupies a middle ground between SRAM, which requires no refresh, and DRAM, which relies on periodic refresh cycles. GCRAM also performs periodic refresh, but at a much lower frequency than DRAM and transparently to the surrounding circuitry.

RAAAM says its memory operates at supply voltages as low as 450mV in FinFET processes, is manufactured using a standard CMOS flow and features separate read and write ports. For modern processors running edge AI workloads and complex algorithms, this could enable twice the on-chip memory capacity within the same silicon area while significantly reducing power consumption.

The company is competing in the emerging embedded-memory market alongside firms such as Weebit Nano, whose embedded ReRAM technology also aims to provide an alternative to conventional SRAM in future semiconductor designs.