Rainmaker Technologies Inc. has changed its name to Broadband Physics Inc. and appointed Mark Laubach to president and CEO.

Laubach replaces Dr. Paul Chin. Broadband Physics did not give a reason for Chin’s departure. Company officials were not immediately available for further comment.

Laubach, a Com21 Inc. co-founder and former chief technology officer for the company, most recently served as CTO at Rainmaker/Broadband Physics.

Broadband Physics also named Shell Electric Mfg. Co. Ltd. Group Managing Director Billy Yung to board chairman.

“We’ve made good progress with our partnerships and development of our new digital signal transmission technology for last-mile broadband access networks,” Laubach said, in a press release.

Broadband Physics, a silicon start-up based in Cupertino, Calif., is focusing its engineering efforts on providing fiber speeds over legacy “last mile” broadband access networks via a modulation scheme called sub-band division multiplexing. SDM leverages Wavelet Mathematics for multi-sub-band signaling, a technique that divides RF spectrum into multiple, equal-sized sub-bands. The result, the company claims, is a digital capacity boost of more than 200 percent compared to existing solutions in “select” last-mile applications, and at one-third the cost.

Broadband Physics said the technology, which targets cable, wireless and satellite networks, entered into its technical execution phase last month. The company demonstrated a working prototype in the lab last year.