Online information source for semiconductor professionals

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 >>

Three members of different standards committees were honoured recently by SEMI Europe. Jan Rothe of Globalfoundries, Jean-Marie Collard from Solvay and Wolfgang Sievert, now retired from Honeywell. The awards were given in the presence of over 220 industry executives at the 3rd Executive Summit during SEMICON Europa, held last week in Dresden, Germany. Read more >>

Brian Halla will retire as Chief Executive Officer of National Semiconductor at the end of November, remaining as Executive Chairman of the company. He will also retire from the Board of Directors at the end May, 2010, exactly 14-years after joining the company. Donald Macleod will replace Halla, currently National's President and Chief Operating Officer. Read more >>

MEMC Electronic Materials has shuffled its senior management with the aim of having executives responsible for its two core markets, semiconductor and solar. Ken Hannah, who has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since April 2006, has been promoted to the newly created position of Executive Vice President of MEMC and President of MEMC Solar Materials. Hannah will therefore be responsible for all sales and manufacturing operations for polysilicon and solar wafers.
Read more >>

Almost a year to the day that Fabtech reported on Thomas Seifert’s appointment as interim CFO for Qimonda, it appears that the industry veteran has moved to AMD to take up the CFO role and the title of senior vice president. Read more >>

Solar and semiconductor wafer slurry reprocessing company, CRS Reprocessing Services (CRS) has named Scott T. Massie as CEO. Prior to this role, Massie was CEO of EPV Solar -- manufacturer of thin-film modules based in Robbinsville -- New Jersey. Read more >>