T.J. Rodgers Steps Down as Cypress Semiconductor CEO

Semiconductor industry legend T.J. Rodgers is stepping down as the CEO of Cypress Semiconductor in order to bring “new blood” into the operations of the company.

With more than 30 years at Cypress, Rodgers has been labeled the poster child for Silicon Valley executives, having come out of Stanford with a Masters and Ph.D in electrical engineering then founding one of the long-lasting and important semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley. In 1982, he founded Cypress and took it public just four years later. His tendency to be outspoken and off-the-cuff in interviews helped him to achieve a “bad boy” status among executives, but it didn’t stop him from being the former chairman of the Semiconductor Industry Association and SunPower Corp. He currently sits on the board of directors of Agiga Tech and Bloom Energy.

T.J. Rodgers, former president and CEO of Cypress SemiconductorIn a statement on his stepping down as CEO, Rodgers says he had not planned to be involved in the operations aspect of Cypress over the last decade of his career. “And, to be completely candid, the board and even the executive staff have urged me to bring new blood into operations,” Rodgers says. Rodgers will now dedicate his time to working full time on technology as a director inside Cypress on projects that will add value to the company.

“I have always reserved about 30 percent of my time to work on technology and one key project,” Rodgers says. “In the future, Cypress management will be able to assign a key project to me and count on it getting done right.”

Cypress says it will begin a search for a new CEO immediately, looking both inside the company as well as outside. In the interim, daily operational activities will be taken over by an Office of CEO, including executive VPs Hassane El-Khoury, Dana Nazarian, Joe Rauschmayer and Thad Trent. Rodgers will remain on the Cypress board.

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