El-Khoury Promoted to Follow Rodgers at Cypress

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Cypress Semiconductor Corp. has promoted Hassane El-Khoury to president and chief executive officer, and opened a seat for him on its board of directors.

At the same time, Ray Bingham, currently chairman of the board, has been named executive chairman, providing him with a day-to-day role in support of the CEO focused externally on customers and investment opportunities.

The moves follow the decision by longtime Cypress CEO T.J. Rodgers’ recent decision to retire as CEO and as a board member.

Cypress has been expanding its interests with the acquisition of Spansion last year and the purchase of part of Broadcom’s Internet of things (IoT) business earlier this year.

“Cypress is at an inflection point,” said El-Khoury, who played a key role in Cypress’s successful integration with Spansion over the last year and a half and its more recent acquisition of Broadcom’s Internet of Things (IoT) business. “We’ve architected our company to become more valuable to our embedded-systems customers, significantly expanding our portfolio of high-value solutions in growth markets such as automotive, industrial, consumer electronics and the IoT. I am thrilled and humbled to lead Cypress into the future as we expand upon our position as the supplier of choice for the world’s most innovative embedded-systems customers and partners.”

El-Khoury was previously executive vice president of Cypress’s Programmable Systems Division, managing the company’s standard and programmable microcontroller (MCU) portfolio, including its Platform PSoC family of devices, and its automotive business.

Prior to that, he helped architect the company’s human-machine interface strategy, which is focused on the automotive touch business, and spearheading its effort to target the growing infotainment, instrumentation cluster and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) segments.

Before joining Cypress in 2007, El-Khoury served in various roles with Continental Automotive Systems in the U.S., Germany and Japan.

Bingham said, “Among the many interested and qualified candidates we interviewed, El-Khoury emerged as the clear executive leader to deliver on Cypress’s enormous potential and unlock its value for customers and investors. He has demonstrated strong leadership and judgment over the past nine years as a senior executive at Cypress, heading up some of the company’s most innovative and successful businesses. He is an agent of change who brings to this position an extensive knowledge of our target markets and a mindset focused on customer value and profitable growth.”

Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE: CY)

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