Dr. Ferguson spearheaded development of custom foundry business at Cypress and has driven significant growth at SkyWater since spin-off
BLOOMINGTON, MN, May 13, 2019 – SkyWater Technology Foundry, the trusted innovation partner for tomorrow’s most advanced technology solutions, today announced that Dr. Brad Ferguson has been appointed as SkyWater’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO). In this new role he will focus on further developing the company’s technology roadmap and IP strategy by identifying high growth markets for SkyWater’s Technology Foundry business along with continuing to lead SkyWater’s government relations efforts.
According to Thomas Sonderman, SkyWater President, “Brad is a natural choice to lead our technology strategy. He brings a unique mix of fab process and technology development, combined with business acumen and government relations experience. Since joining SkyWater, I have recognized his technical leadership, strategic thinking ability, and impressive management, communications and relationship skills.”
Dr. Ferguson most recently served as SkyWater’s Senior Director of Sales, responsible for government relations strategy and sales in the custom foundry line of business at SkyWater. He started his career in photolithography process development at Cypress Semiconductor. In 2008, he stood up the Cypress Foundry Solutions business to provide differentiated technology to high-tech innovators which has grown into nearly 40% of SkyWater’s revenue. Dr. Ferguson also drove the accreditation process to achieve Trusted Foundry status from DMEA which marked the company’s entry into the aerospace and defense market, a pillar of SkyWater’s market strategy.
“Notably, Brad developed the custom foundry line of business at Cypress prior to the spin-off of SkyWater and shaped it over a number of years into a growth engine for the fab. I believe his leadership skills in this new role as CTO will direct the organization’s focus on the necessary technologies, customers and markets to accelerate SkyWater’s pace of growth and further its success,” said Dana Nazarian, Executive Vice President, Operations & Technology, Cypress Semiconductor and member of SkyWater’s Board of Directors.
“I’m very pleased with how the custom foundry business has grown over the last 11 years and I’m excited to now take on this new leadership role. At a time when the tech landscape is growing increasingly diverse and the pace of disruptive innovation is accelerating, I look forward to leading our technology and IP roadmaps to continue development of offerings innovators need to bring their ideas to market for the next wave of hybrid technologies,” said Dr. Brad Ferguson, SkyWater Chief Technology Officer.
About SkyWater Technology Foundry
SkyWater is a solely U.S.-based and owned, DMEA-accredited Technology Foundry, providing custom design and development services, exclusive design IP, and volume manufacturing for integrated circuits and micro devices. The Company’s world-class operations and unique processing capabilities enable mixed-signal CMOS, rad-hard and ROIC solutions. SkyWater’s Innovation Engineering Services empower development of superconducting and 3D ICs, along with carbon nanotube, photonic and MEMS devices. SkyWater serves customers in growing markets such as aerospace & defense, automotive, cloud & computing, consumer, industrial, IoT and medical. For more information, please visit: www.skywatertechnology.com/.
SkyWater Company Contact: Ross Miller | 952.851.5063 | ross.miller@skywatertechnology.com
SkyWater Media Contact: Lauri Julian | 949.280.5602 | lauri.julian@skywatertechnology.com