Grand Challenge Masterclass with Dr. Suraj Rengarajan - MD and Principal Technologist at Applied Materials India
Avaana is pleased to announce a Masterclass with Dr. Suraj Rengarajan, Managing Director and Principal Technologist at Applied Materials India, for the Avaana - Startup India Grand Challenge for Deep Tech Innovation 2025–26.
Session Title: Innovation Opportunities in the Global Semiconductor and Advanced Materials Value Chain
🗓 24th April, 2026 (Friday)
⏰ 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
💻 Virtual
This Masterclass explores the innovation landscape across the semiconductor value chain — through the lens of one of the world's leading semiconductor equipment, materials and process technology companies. The session will unpack where the real opportunities lie for deep tech founders building in the semicon space. Founders will gain insight into how the global semiconductor ecosystem is structured, where strategic capability is being built, and what it takes to translate deep technical expertise into commercially viable, globally competitive innovation. Dr. Rengarajan will draw on nearly three decades at the frontier of semiconductor technology to share his perspective on the challenges, inflection points, and partnership pathways that define success in this space.
About the Speaker
Dr. Suraj Rengarajan is the Managing Director and Principal Technologist at Applied Materials India. He drives strategic engagement between Applied Materials India and external technology ecosystems, including universities, research institutions, the start-up ecosystem and industry forums. He started his career at Applied Materials, Santa Clara in 1997, where he held several roles across process engineering, technology, program management, and product marketing for thin film deposition and metallization for interconnects silicides and novel memories.
He moved to India in 2007 to head the SunFab group for Applied Materials in India. Later he headed the engineering group for dielectric deposition. As the India CTO, he worked on materials engineering driven inflections to develop and commercialize new technologies. As SPG India head he drove SPG strategic objectives in India, planning and growing a customer focused organization, building local leadership talent, enabling collaboration across India & Asia region, and strengthening university and ecosystem partnerships. He holds a B. Tech from IIT Madras in Metallurgical Engineering and an M.S and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Materials Science. He has over 15 US patents and 20+ publications.