Dr. Aart de Geus to receive GSA’s Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award

SAN JOSE, USA: The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) announces industry veteran Dr. Aart de Geus as the recipient of the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award, to be presented at the GSA Awards Dinner Celebration on Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, Calif.

Established in 1999, the first GSA “Exemplary Leadership Award” was given to Dr. Morris Chang, chairman and chief executive officer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC). Today, the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award recognizes individuals for their exceptional contributions, exemplifying how their vision and global leadership have transformed and elevated the entire semiconductor industry.

“Receiving the tenth Morris Chang award is a special honor as EDA and Manufacturing are truly the ‘book-ends’ that enable the success of our joint customers, the very constituency of GSA! Just as our collective technologies depend on joint innovation and execution, I’m keenly aware that my own professional journey is entirely built on the genius and hard work of preceding industry pioneers and Synopsys employees,” said Dr. de Geus, chief executive officer, Synopsys. “I’m honored to receive this award and grateful for having had so many opportunities to work in such an exciting industry,” added de Geus.

Since co-founding Synopsys in 1986, Dr. de Geus has expanded Synopsys from a start-up synthesis enterprise to a world leader in electronic design automation (EDA). As one of the leading experts on logic simulation and logic synthesis, Dr. de Geus was made a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in January 1999.

He has been honored for his industry achievements with several awards including the 2001 IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Industrial Pioneer Award, 2007 IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal, and the 2008 EDAC/CEDA Kaufman award. In 2002, Dr. de Geus was named CEO of the Year by Electronic Business magazine, and in 2004, Entrepreneur of the Year in IT for Northern California by Ernst & Young. Electronic Business magazine chose Dr. de Geus as one of "The 10 Most Influential Executives" in November 2005. He was awarded the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) “Spirit of the Valley” Lifetime Achievement Award in November of 2007 and the Phil Kaufman Award for distinguished contributions to EDA in October 2008.

Dr. de Geus is active in the business community as chairman of the board of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG), and a member of TechNet, the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), and the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDAC). He is also heavily involved in education for the next generation, creating the Synopsys Outreach Foundation in 1999, which promotes project-based science and math learning throughout Silicon Valley.

“Our Board of Directors has selected Dr. de Geus as the recipient for the 2009 Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award. We are thrilled to honor his extraordinary business vision and industry leadership. Aart recognized very early in his career the integral role of EDA tools to push this industry forward. He is a technical and intellectual innovator and works hard to improve upon ideas, which is what this industry needs during challenging times. We are eager to highlight Aart’s achievements at the Annual Awards Dinner,” said Jodi Shelton, GSA president.

The 2009 GSA Awards Dinner Celebration is made possible through the support of GSA charter member and title sponsor TSMC, as well as additional sponsors, including ARM, Advantest, Amkor, Atheros, Broadcom, Cadence Design Systems, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM, Inphi, J.P. Morgan, NVIDIA, QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies, Samsung, SAP, PricewaterhouseCoopers and UMC.