Capital Equipment

Electronic News, April 17, 2000

Surface/Interface Inc. (S/II), a thin-film measurement systems design and manufacturing company based in Sunnyvale, Calif., recently appointed Jim Owens as president and chief executive officer. Owens replaces Charles Bryson, the company's founder, who has taken the role of chief technology officer. Prior to joining S/II, Owen was president of Verdant Technologies, a division of Ultratech Stepper Inc. He also held executive positions at International Sematech Inc and National Semiconductor Corp., where he has worked for 20 years.

Semiconductors

Analog and mixed signal devices manufacturer TelCom Semiconductor Inc., based in Mountain View, Calif., recently announced the appointment of Mark Brown as vice president of finance and chief financial officer. In his new position, he will be reporting to former CFO, Bob Gargus, who was promoted to president in December. His preceding employer was MainStreet Networks, where he served as CFO and vice president of finance. Brown also held executive positions with Tandem Computers Inc. and Apple Computer Inc.

Zilog Inc., Campbell, Calif., has announced that Lionel N. Sterling has agreed to join the company's board as a director. Currently president of corporate turnarounds firm Equity Resources Inc., Sterling is also chairman of three companies' boards, including Ludlow Composites Corp., and serves as a director on two other: I-Stat Corp. and Specialty Chemical Resources Inc. In addition to his numerous earlier positions as chairman and member of the board, Sterling also managed Whitehead/Sterling, an investment firm he co-founded, from 1988 to 1992.

Michael Farrier recently joined the Integrated Circuit Engineering organization as vice president of technical consulting. Farrier formerly held positions with companies such as Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc., Xerox Corp., Hughes Electronics Corp., and, most recently, Dalsa Inc. Farrier has a 23 years of experience in the development of MOS processes and CCD imaging device technologies. In addition to that, he has gained expertise in focal plane readout design, cryogenic and radiation tolerant CMOS, backside thinning, and custom packaging. His various work projects resulted in nine patents and articles in IEEE and SPIE journals.

Desperate Times

According to Icarian Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based management planning firm, the high-tech industry reported an unemployment rate of only 2.3 percent last January. Furthermore, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 2.1 percent rate in the Silicon Valley area for the same industry segment. Some Valley executives are convinced that there is even a negative unemployment rate in many technically based sectors. As the number of hi-tech jobs increases at a 10 percent annual rate in the United States, firms currently report a shortage of 269,000 workers, such as engineers and scientists. Desperate for new hires, companies have lobbied Congress to increase the number of yearly work visas. But even after a 56 percent increase in available visas for last year, this year's quota has been filled at the end of March.