Industry veteran to focus on operational excellence, sustained growth
San Diego, California, June 12, 2006 — Peregrine Semiconductor, a supplier of the industry’s most advanced RF CMOS integrated circuits, today announced that Craig H. Ensley has joined its executive team as President and Chief Operating Officer, and has been elected to the board of directors. Ensley has 30 years of broad experience in the semiconductor and systems technology industries, spanning venture capital start-ups to multi-hundred-million dollar public corporations. Most recently Craig was with Cirrus Logic, where he led repositioning of the firm to be a highly profitable mixed-signal analog IC company. He brings to Peregrine a strong vision for disruptive semiconductor technology, a deep strategic and product planning background, extensive knowledge in executing high-growth businesses, and exceptional leadership and team-building skills which attract and motivate a talented workforce. Ensley will be responsible for leading Peregrine’s operations in order to meet the market’s explosive demand for UltraCMOS™ RFICs.
“We set out to fill a tall order: to find an individual with not only a strong background ramping a start- up IC company, but also an understanding of the complex issues associated with a billion dollar company,” said Jim Cable, C.E.O. of Peregrine Semiconductor. “Craig’s relevant mixed-signal product experience, global business relationships, and comprehensive understanding of the IC industry made him an ideal candidate. His impressive ability to establish a vision and motivate a corporation toward operational excellence made him the right choice for Peregrine. His leadership, loyalty and extraordinary sense of fundamental business operations will ensure that the foundation upon which we are building Peregrine is rock solid, and poised for the decade ahead,“ he added.
“The Peregrine opportunity is an intensely exciting and challenging one,” said Ensley. “The high-performance mixed-signal business is large and growing; our growth markets – such as mobile handsets and broadband RF – are innovative and leading-edge; and our proprietary UltraCMOS™ technology is truly revolutionary. The talent in the company is unmatched in our industry. Couple these facts with the momentum Peregrine has developed in the recent couple of years, and I’m thrilled at the opportunity to join the team,” he added.
Prior to Ensley’s position as Senior Vice President of Cirrus Logic, he was an executive in the team which started Crystal Semiconductor, a highly successful mixed-signal IC company which pioneered high performance analog IC design using industry-standard CMOS wafer processing. At Crystal, Ensley was initially Vice President of Marketing and subsequently General Manager of several divisions. Previously Ensley led Marketing for the semiconductor division of Rockwell International where his team started and built a dominant and enduring position as the world’s leading supplier of modem ICs. Ensley has an M.B.A. from Stanford University and B.S. degrees in both Applied Physics and Economics from the University of California at San Diego.
About UltraCMOS™ Technology
UltraCMOS™ mixed-signal process technology is a patented variation of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology on a sapphire substrate providing with high yields and competitive costs. This technology delivers significant performance advantages over competing processes such as GaAs, SiGe BiCMOS and bulk silicon CMOS in applications where RF performance, low power and integration are paramount.
About Peregrine Semiconductor
Peregrine Semiconductor Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets high-performance communications ICs for the wireless infrastructure and mobile wireless; broadband communications; space, defense and avionics markets. Manufactured on the Company’s proprietary UltraCMOS™ mixed-signal process technology, Peregrine products are uniquely poised to meet the needs of a global RF design community in high-growth applications such as WCDMA and GSM digital cellular, broadband, DTV, DVR and rad-hard space and defense programs. Peregrine 0.25µm and 0.5µm UltraCMOS devices are manufactured in its 6” CMOS facility located in Sydney, Australia and in Tokyo, Japan through an alliance with OKI Electric Industry Co., Ltd. The Company, headquartered in San Diego, California, maintains global sales support operations and a worldwide technical distribution network. Additional information is available on the web at psemi.com. Contact Peregrine’s worldwide distribution partner, Richardson Electronics (NASDAQ: RELL), for sales information at 1-800-737-6937.
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