Kent to apply his deep industry knowledge and experience to lead SkyWater’s technical vision and development strategy
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – June 22, 2020 – SkyWater Technology, the innovator’s trusted foundry partner, today announced that John P. Kent has been appointed as Executive Vice President, Technology Development and Design Enablement to further establish SkyWater as the technology authority for relevant process R&D innovation and the realization of those technologies into comprehensive semiconductor manufacturing platforms. Kent will apply his deep industry knowledge and experience to lead SkyWater’s technical vision and strategy for developing the technologies that enable customers to achieve successful silicon in current and future designs.
Kent’s 40 plus years of experience in the semiconductor industry include demonstrated successes in technology development, operations and leadership positions. He has managed effective technical organizations and critical resources across multiple geographies. He joins SkyWater from GLOBALFOUNDRIES where he served as Vice President, Foundry IP; Customer Design Enablement in Malta, New York. Kent and his team developed and enabled critical IP for several of GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ technology offerings.
“John is joining our team at an exciting time as we continue to expand our technology roadmaps, design enablement capabilities and partnerships to help drive the company to the next level,” said Thomas Sonderman, SkyWater President. “John’s extensive industry experience and proven success in technology development will enhance our position in the industry as a Technology Foundry – seamlessly blending process R&D with scalable high-volume manufacturing of advanced technologies in the same world-class U.S facility.”
According to Kent, “I’m thrilled to become part of SkyWater’s leadership team to help evolve the company’s technology innovation and continue building its market partner ecosystem. By combining SkyWater’s process technology expertise with its customer’s own device/application expertise in a secure IP environment, the company is in a unique position to offer defense and commercial customers something they can’t find elsewhere.”
Prior to GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Kent’s industry experience includes executive level positions with KLA-Tencor in the Wafer Inspection Group, and technology development leadership positions at Rambus and AMIS (now ON Semiconductor). Previously, for more than two decades he held a variety of positions at IBM Microelectronics with responsibilities for the development of planar metallization/insulator technologies; deep-UV and i-line lithography and DRAM process development. Mid-career, he was responsible for DRAM / embedded DRAM and memory yield, design & product engineering with his teams. Kent holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State University and is a Senior Grade member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AiChE) as well as a Senior Member of IEEE.
About SkyWater Technology
SkyWater is the only U.S.-owned and U.S.-based pure play semiconductor foundry and is a DoD-accredited Trusted supplier, specializing in custom design and development services, design IP, and volume manufacturing for integrated circuits and micro devices. Through its Technology Foundry model, SkyWater’s world-class operations and unique processing capabilities enable mixed-signal CMOS, power, 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. The company serves customers in growing markets such as aerospace & defense, automotive, biomedical, cloud & computing, consumer, industrial and IoT. 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