Former PolyCipher CEO Tom Lookabaugh has joined Entropic as its chief technology officer. Entropic is a semiconductor design company and the key advocate behind the MoCA home networking standard.

With Lookabaugh's appointment as CTO, Itzhak Gurantz, co-founder, will move into an individual contributor role and will focus on long-term technology initiatives for the company.

Lookabaugh held a variety of executive positions at PolyCipher, a venture backed by Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications to develop a downloadable conditional access system (DCAS).

PolyCipher was supposed to develop a new DCAS independent of those already being provided by Cisco (Scientific-Atlanta) and Motorola. Last year, Cisco and Motorola began to participate more directly in PolyCipher. Two weeks ago, the PolyCipher program was taken over by CableLabs.

"Tom has the experience and expertise to guide Entropic in delivering our silicon solutions today, and into the future," said Patrick Henry, president and CEO of Entropic. "His unique mix as technology visionary, innovator, evangelist, architect and educator will bring the right perspective as we continue to lead the charge toward ubiquitous home entertainment connectivity."