Maxim Integrated Products announced yesterday that John (Jack) Gifford, Maxim’s founder and CEO from 1983 to the present has elected to retire as CEO due to health reasons. He will remain with the company on a part time basis as a strategic advisor focused on product planning and business direction. Mr. Gifford’s continuing role will facilitate a seamless transition to a new CEO.
Tunc Doluca has been named president and CEO of the company effective January 1, 2007. Mr. Doluca will also become a director of the company at that time. To limit management representation on the Board of Directors, thereby maintaining the independence of Maxim’s board, Mr. Gifford will relinquish his seat on the board. B. Kipling (Kip) Hagopian, who has been an independent member of Maxim’s board since 1997, has been elected interim chairman of the board. Over the next several months, Maxim will conduct a search for a permanent chairman.
In connection with Mr. Doluca’s appointment to CEO, Maxim also announced that Vijay Ullal, currently senior vice president, will be promoted to group president, and Charles (Chuck) Rigg, currently vice president, will be promoted to senior vice president, reporting to Mr. Doluca. In addition to his present role of managing Maxim’s fabrication facilities worldwide, Mr. Ullal will take on the further responsibility of managing several business units. Mr. Rigg will assume additional executive management responsibilities while continuing to oversee Maxim’s administrative, legal and personnel functions.
Mr. Gifford, 65, started his career in the semiconductor industry in 1964 with Fairchild > Semiconductor where he later became the company’s first Director of Analog Products. In 1968 Mr. Gifford cofounded Advanced Micro Devices and remained vice president of marketing and planning until he left to begin a career in farming for ten years, during which time he also held executive positions at Intersil. As senior vice president, he was instrumental in Intersil’s pioneering development of low-power CMOS for analog applications.
Mr. Gifford is considered to be one of the “founding fathers” of the analog microchip industry. Mr. Gifford was named CEO of Intersil after it was acquired by the General Electric. He left GE and founded Maxim in 1983 with a vision of providing high-quality analog and mixed-signal engineering solutions to the technology industry.
From the company’s inception Mr. Gifford developed a culture of high expectations with an emphasis on innovation. In Maxim’s first year, Mr. Gifford introduced a “product proliferation” strategy, challenging his team to develop at least fifteen new products each quarter. The company responded, and in 2006 Maxim’s product portfolio included more than 5,000 analog and mixed-signal integrated products.