Electronics Weekly
It’s not what you’d expect if you mention Dr Andy Sellars’ name to anyone, but there you go. The old adage “Never judge a book by its cover” comes to mind. But before I delve into the involvement with two of my favourite big-screen heroes, I start his story when he was ten years old.
At the impressionable age of ten, his grandfather asked him what he wanted to do when he was older. Without hesitation or repetition, he replied he wanted to be a scientist. He could see himself wearing a white lab coat conducting experiments in a laboratory.
Sure enough, he started with a Chemistry set and completed all the experiments in the manual. Then, he made an electric motor at the age of eleven. Andy was on a roll, and the allure of Science and Engineering got a firm hold of him.
Everyday Electronics
He observed his uncle dabbling with electronics, and he was totally blown away. Noticing his nephew’s fascination for Electronics, he bought him an electronics set. What a wonderful uncle! If only more families supported and encouraged younger members like this. He ardently conducted all the experiments, but like any electronics enthusiast will tell you, once bitten forever smitten.
For example, he bought a series of electronics magazines before subscribing to a monthly edition of Everyday Electronics (one of his copies is shown below).
Andy Sellars smiled while taking that bright walk down memory lane and reflected on building circuits of interest. At the back of the magazine, there was a form which he would fill in and post to order his components from Maplin. Back then, Maplin was a postal order service. Interestingly, both he and I had a handful of school friends who were hobbyists, but unlike me, Andy’s entrepreneurial skills came to the surface.
Instead of a solo hobby, as was my case, he raised a group order for components for him and his mates. He fondly remembered building a CB radio, which he took to school, reflecting that the receiver didn’t function, but the transmitter did. His school had a receiver and was located near a motorway, so the young Andy broadcast a message, and to his surprise and delight, some of the trucks that drove past replied! Now, that might not mean anything now but, back then, hobbyists always worried about testing a radio transmitter, lest they got caught!
Pinewood
It was during his school years he worked briefly with a gentlemen that provided animals to Pinewood and Elstree film studios. He remembers fondly when his boss received a call from Pinewood to provide bats for the first Batman movie in the late 80s. We believe this was the Michael Keaton Batman film with Kim Basinger and Jack Nicholson. Ah, that’s the connection, I thought!
Fast forwarding a little, he went to university, graduated and took a year out to work for Thorn EMI to build missile fuzes, but deep inside, a call to study further beckoned him to St. Andrews in Fife Scotland.
After completing an MSc in Laser Physics, he was offered two PhD Research Assistant posts, one at Oxford University to study high power lasers and a second at Strathclyde University to explore high voltage power transmission. He chose Strathclyde, as the PhD was commercially funded, and he was required to submit a business case at the start of each year to secure sponsorship for the next year, which my interviewee did successfully. A skill which was to play a very important role in his career.
After submitting his thesis, his supervisor hailed it as one of the best from the 90’s. The research was commercialised and then sold off for £20 million.
finTech
Fastforwarding a little more, Andy joined a series of companies where he learned to write embedded software. One such finTech company, he wrote device drivers for ATMs that read card pin numbers and dispensed cash. But then, post 9/11, the stock market crashed and many finTech companies went bankrupt. The CEO of his company was required to massively reduce his staff and, sadly, he was made redundant. However, the CEO gave him a laptop with Visual Basic software and made some introductions…
At this point, he worked for himself and, at a party, met two fascinating people who supplied floodlights for film studios. These floodlights were used in the dark to flood an entire scene with artificial light. And they were frequently used to film James Bond scenes in London in the dead of night, when the streets were quiet. However, the floodlights would frequently blow up during filming, causing inconvenience to the film crew along with costly repairs. The company asked if they could be fixed and he replied positively.
Armed with the contract, he investigated the cause and fixed the problem, much to the delight of the floodlight company and the film crew. As to which actor played James Bond at the time of his involvement, we both agreed it was Pierce Brosnan. Well, well! Isn’t that interesting?
Photon detectors
Andy Sellars then joined a company that developed single Photon detectors for blood analysis. In essence, blood samples were placed in several test tubes, then an enzyme would be added.
The specific enzyme would react with the blood, in case it was say cancer, or diabetes, and release light. Then he moved to the South and joined Innovate UK, where he invested £15m in early stage companies.
Compound Semiconductors
During this time, he was asked to investigate Compound Semiconductors. After consulting 150 companies and 50 academics, he wrote the business case for the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult. And happening to be in Whitehall, he bumped into Jo Johnson, Boris Johnson’s brother, who was Science Minister at the time. He managed to secure Jo Johnson’s interest by delivering an elevator pitch in the ministerial elevator.
In January of 2016, the Chancellor George Osborne granted £50 million to setup the Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult (CSAC). As the Catapult’s Founder, Andy led the start-up phase and recruited the senior teams. He represented the Catapult in Parliament on five occasions, appearing with the Prime Minister on the BBC News and attending a roundtable at No. 10 Downing Street. From CSAC, he then joined Silicon Catalyst.
Dr Andy Sellars
As with all my blogs about famous people, I asked a few others to also say some words about Dr Sellars. I chose two brilliant and highly well-known people in the British semiconductor field. First, from Rupert Baines:
“Andy is one of those people who everyone in the industry knows and everyone respects. He has a knack for being in the right place and adding value wherever he goes,” he told me. “I have known him for years, but had the pleasure of working with him as co-chair of the Semiconductor Expert Working Group and it has been astonishing how widely connected he is and how much he achieves.”
Second, from Scott White:
“I’ve crossed paths with Andy many times, particularly in his roles at Innovate UK and CSAC, and most recently serving together on the Government’s Semiconductor Advisory Panel,” he shared. “The thing that always comes across most strongly is his absolute passion for the UK electronics industry, and it’s been a pleasure sharing ideas with him on how to encourage more interest in the sector, to foster strong local talent and create an environment to build even more world-leading companies.”
Both those testimonials speak for themselves and from two people I have great respect for. These gentlemen are giants in our industry and, sorry to fly our flag, British! Thank you very much Rupert and Scott!
Andy Sellars has also always been a big fan of Electronics Weekly since the 90s. His enthusiasm for this title has led him to become a judge for both the Elektra Awards and Electronics Weekly‘s Women Leaders in Electronics (EWWLIE), another area he feels very passionately about.
Relaxation
For relaxation, he does Yoga 2 to 3 times a week, is an avid reader, frequent cyclist and enjoys travelling. Phew! I don’t know how he crams all that in a week…I wonder if he ever sleeps? He recently returned from a business trip to San Francisco on Saturday the 1st of February. I WhatsApped him and checked in to see how he was… Well, not surprisingly, he was jet-lagged. Most people take days to recover, but by Sunday the 2nd of February, Andy has recovered. Wow.
I was still buzzing after my call with him ended and as I look back at his glittering career, I am drawn to the support he received from his family at an early stage. That was the incubator that drove him to become what he is today. The passion and the contributions made for British science and electronics fills my heart with warmth. We are a great nation and people like Andy Sellars make me fiercely proud to be British.
Author
A veteran of 37 years in the Analog Integrated Circuit Design industry, Ash Madni continues to contribute to the rapidly changing world of Microelectronics. He has worked for a number of big companies, such as Ferranti, STL, GEC Plessey Semiconductors, Maxim Integrated, Dialog Semiconductors, to name a few. He has also worked in startups, such as Phyworks.
During his tenure at GEC Plessey Semiconductors, Ash raised over 20 patents, including Synthesis Exploiting Algebraic Design, which was used successfully in a number of products. Ash is currently running his consultancy, Madni Technologies (UK) ltd.
For relaxation he enjoys walking and spending time with his wife, daughters and grandchildren. He is also active as a published composer and has started his first Sci-Fi horror novel Transmutation – ‘The Rise of Hemonra’.
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