GLOBALFOUNDRIES board of directors appoints Ajit Manocha as CEO

MILPITAS, USA: GLOBALFOUNDRIES announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Ajit Manocha as the company’s CEO on a permanent basis, effective immediately. He had served as interim CEO since June.

Manocha is a veteran semiconductor industry executive with more than 30 years of global expertise in operations, general management, and manufacturing. As interim CEO, Manocha has played a critical role in strengthening GLOBALFOUNDRIES, focusing on improving operations, increasing customer engagement, and laying the groundwork for technology leadership in the future.

“The Board worked diligently to review and interview a number of outstanding candidates who had excellent qualifications to become our CEO,” said Jim Norling, chairman of the GLOBALFOUNDRIES Board of Directors. “We were excited to see the caliber of individuals who were eager to lead this company. In the end, we decided the best candidate is in-house and we’re extremely pleased that Ajit has accepted our offer to become our permanent CEO.”

“Ajit’s efforts over the last four months – his passion, his energy, his leadership skills and his ability to help drive the business and its operations to a new level – make him the right person to lead GLOBALFOUNDRIES forward,” said Ibrahim Ajami, vice chairman of the Board and CEO of the Advanced Technology Investment Co., the majority shareholder in GLOBALFOUNDRIES. “With Ajit’s confirmation, ATIC remains committed to ensuring that GLOBALFOUNDRIES becomes an industry-changing platform of innovation, customers’ preferred choice, and the leading semiconductor foundry in the world.”

In a very short time, Manocha has overseen the company’s focused effort to achieve operational excellence, boost customer satisfaction and accelerate leading-edge capacity expansion plans. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is manufacturing the foundry industry’s first High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) product, and is expected to ship more HKMG volume in 2011 than all other foundries combined. The company also is in the midst of capacity build-outs at its fabs in Germany, New York and Singapore.

“I am looking forward to accelerating the momentum our 12,000 employees have created the last four months,” said Manocha. “I have been a part of the vision of this organization since its inception three years ago and am eager to continue to drive the company forward. Given the demand from our customers, our strong global assets and our committed investor with its long-term perspective, we’ll strive for market leadership in the semiconductor foundry industry.”

Manocha previously served as executive VP of Worldwide Operations at Spansion. Prior to Spansion, he served as executive VP and Chief Manufacturing Officer at NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors), where he was responsible for worldwide IC manufacturing, supply chain management and purchasing for the semiconductor division.

Manocha has held senior executive and management positions at AT&T Microelectronics and AT&T Bell Laboratories where he began his career as a research scientist. There he was granted more than a dozen US and international patents for several inventions in the field of microelectronics.