Peter Denyer (1953-2010)

Professor Peter B. Denyer was an academic, company director, multiple entrepreneur and pioneer of CMOS imagers.

He was the first academic to grow a Scottish university spin-out company to PLC.

Peter graduated with first-class honours from Loughborough University in 1975.

He worked at GCHQ and then designed LSI circuits for Ferranti and WMI, while studying for his PhD.

He showed early interest in company start-ups: being Co-founder and Director of Denyer-Walmsley Microelectronics Ltd.

In 1980 Peter became a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, where he ran a series of research projects and held multiple consultancies.

In 1986 he was appointed Professor (Advent Chair of Integrated Electronics).

In 1989 his team announced the world’s first single-chip CMOS video camera, which he developed commercially, setting up VLSI Vision Ltd (VVL).

He was Chairman of Scottish Microelectronics Centre, Microemissive Displays and Rhetorical Systems.

He was Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh and Adviser to the Commercialisation Unit.

He chaired ATEEDA, QFT and Pufferfish, advised Dexela, and was a board member of the ERA Foundation.

Peter obtained a Queen’s Award to Industry for VVL, was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal and was appointed FRSE.

Peter was an inspiration to a generation of students, young academics and aspiring entrepreneurs.

His sudden and untimely death, from cancer, is a tragic loss for his colleagues, friends and family.

He leaves behind wife Fiona, daughters Kate and Kirsty, as well as his father, mother and two brothers.