Online information source for semiconductor professionals

VLSI Research has named Michael A. Martinez to the newly created position of vice president. Reporting to VLSI's President Risto Puhakka, Martinez will use his new position to expand the company's sales and marketing operations and infrastructure. His responsibilities will include the sales and marketing of VLSI's main research products and services on weSRCH, the organisation's online discussion board for professionals in the industries of medicine, high technology and green technologies.

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Susan M. James has been elected to serve on Applied Materials' Board of Directors as a member of the Audit Committee. A former partner at Ernst & Young, she once served as partner-in-charge of the audit work for companies such as Sun Microsystems, Intel Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Autodesk and Amazon.com. After joining Ernst & Young in 1975, James became a partner in 1987 and served on Ernst & Young Americas Executive Board of Directors from January 2002 through June 2006. Read more >>

STMicroelectronics has announced plans to improve the effectiveness of its marketing and sales structure by merging regions in Asian into two categories: Greater China & South Asia and Japan & Korea. Effective from January 1, 2010, the change will also call for a restructuring in management within the regions. Read more >>

Future Horizons has entered the India market by signing up Pradeep Chakraborty as an affiliate. Chakraborty is a former Executive Editor of CyberMedia India Online Ltd (CIOL). Malcolm Penn, Chairman and CEO, Future Horizons regards Chakraborty as knowledgeable authority on semiconductors. He specialises in semiconductors as well as electronics applications and telecoms research and will represent Future Horizons in India and help promote the sale of documents, the Start Up Service, as well as Future Horizon’s International events, including the International Electronics Forum (IEF 2010) in May next year.
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Materials provider to the semiconductor and solar industries Voltaix has announced an executive management change as company founder and CEO Dr. John P. de Neufville has resigned his post. Remaining in the role of president, chairman and chief scientist for the company, Dr. de Neufville will be replaced in the CEO role on an interim basis by Mark K. Fine (left) from January 1, 2010. Matthew Stephens, COO, has also announced that he is departing the company to pursue other opportunities. Read more >>

Daniel Armbrust, former vice president of 300mm Semiconductor Operation, has been named president and Chief Executive Officer of Sematech. Armbrust will be replacing Michael R. Polcari, who has held the position since February 2003. Polcari succeeds OB Bilous as chairman of Sematech's Board of Directors. Read more >>

AMD has added industry veteran and 44-year employee of OBM, Nicholas Donofrio, to its board of directors. Initially working as a logic and memory chip designer, Donofrio moved to lead IBM’s technology strategy as executive vice president and IBM fellow prior to retiring from the company in 2008. Read more >>

Although the fledgling foundry did not say why the former head of AMD and its first Chairman, Hector Ruiz was leaving the company on a ‘voluntary leave of absence effective immediately,’ Ruiz was to have stood down in his role in January, 2010. An interim Chairman, Alan Ross will take over the role until a permanent Chairman has been appointed by the board. Ross, the former CEO of Broadcom was a current board member. Read more >>

Between them bringing more than 20 years of management experience in the semiconductor industry, Kurt Sievers and Frans Scheper have joined the NXP Semiconductor management team as general manager for the automotive business and general manager for the standard products business, respectively. The appointments were made to further the company’s strategic High Performance Mixed Signal (HPMS) technology development. Read more >>

Dr. Ben Tsai, KLA-Tencor’s Executive Vice President, and CTO has been appointed to serve as a member of Ultratech’s Board of Directors. Ultratech chose Tsai due to his 23 years of experience at KLA-Tencor and is a key member of its executive management team and deep technological insight and a valuable global perspective into future trends. Read more >>