Ken Hines Joins Crocus Technology as Vice President of Business Development — Semiconductor Industry Veteran Joins Team to Bring MRAM Technology to Market
For Immediate Release
Contact: Layla McHale for Crocus Technology (408) 981-6394 layla@mchalecomm.com
SUNNYVALE, Calif. – February 11, 2009 Crocus Technologies, a premier developer of Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM) products and technology, today announced that Ken Hines has joined its team as Vice President of Business Development. Hines will be based in the company's Sunnyvale office, and will be responsible for securing business partnerships and customer design wins. Hines brings 23 years of worldwide semiconductor sales, marketing, and business development to Crocus, with a strong focus on advanced memory markets.
“With success on critical development milestones in place, Crocus has reached the stage where customer engagement is a priority. Ken has a proven track record of forming key partner and customer relationships at all stages of product lifecycles,” said Jean Pierre Braun, co-founder and CEO of Crocus Technology. “We're delighted to have Ken join our efforts in bringing our proprietary MRAM technology and products to market.”
Prior to Crocus, Hines held several U.S. and international senior sales and business development roles at Rambus, including director of sales for patent licensing, and business development manager for new products. In the latter role, Hines focused on building partner ecosystems and closing alpha customers for Rambus' proprietary memory and serial link products. He also held sales management positions with VLSI Technology and AMD. He holds his BSEE from the University of Pacific.
“I believe MRAM-based technology is providing significant value and cost savings in a wide range of existing and emerging high-volume systems applications,” said Ken Hines, vice president of business development at Crocus Technology. “With its proprietary MRAM offering now ready for production ramp-up, I look forward to helping Crocus take its place as the MRAM technology and product leader.”
Crocus' proprietary MRAM technology solves all the well-known problems encountered in earlier MRAM developments. The company's technology has demonstrated its stability, reliability, data retention, endurance, and scalability, while exhibiting high speed, low power dissipation, and excellent resistance to external perturbation.
About Crocus
Crocus Technologies is an early-stage developer of MRAM technology for dense, non-volatile, high-speed, scalable RAM memories. Its MRAM technology was conceived in the Grenoble-based Spintec laboratory, a world leading R&D center in Spintronics affiliated with two leading French labs, CEA and CNRS. Crocus Technologies MRAM technology is covered by a comprehensive patent portfolio. The company licenses its technology for standalone and embedded chip applications in a wide variety of telecommunication, networking, storage, computing and handheld applications. Crocus is backed by VC firms AGF-PE, CDC Innovation, NanoDimension, Sofinnova Partners, Sofinnova Ventures, and Ventech and has operations in Grenoble, France, and Sunnyvale, California.