GlobalFoundries on Monday announced that its board of directors has appointed Ajit Manocha, who had served as interim chief executive officer since June, as the company's chief executive officer on a permanent basis.

"The board worked diligently to review and interview a number of outstanding candidates who had excellent qualifications to become our CEO. 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," said Jim Norling, chairman of the GlobalFoundries board of directors.

Ajit Manocha is a veteran semiconductor industry executive with more than 30 years of global expertise in operations, general management, and manufacturing. Mr. Manocha previously served as executive vice president of worldwide operations at Spansion. Prior to Spansion, he served as executive vice president 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.

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 of directors believed that the management was responsible for failure to deliver 32nm SOI/HKMG chips on time to Advanced Micro Devices as well as for their low yields.

In a very short time, Mr. 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. 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," said Mr. Manocha.

Tags: Globalfoundries, Semiconductor, 32nm, 28nm