Fairchild Relocates Mixed Signal Business Unit

Fairchild Semiconductor International (South Portland, ME) has announced that it will relocate its Mixed Signal Business Unit from its San Diego, CA offices to Carlsbad, CA to increase its pace of new product development. Fairchild's Mixed Signal Unit, part of Fairchild's Analog and Mixed Signal Group, employs about 40 people, primarily in design engineering, product definition and marketing. Fairchild plans to increase its staff of integrated circuit designers at the Carlsbad site by over 50 percent before the end of the year. The move is expected to be completed by early July.Fairchild's rapid growth, which has more than doubled annual revenues since 1997, has been driven by new product development. Revenue from new products has increased from about five percent of total sales in 1997 to about 35 percent of this year's revenue with a target of 40 percent of total sales for the year."We're introducing about 70 new products per quarter," said Kirk Pond, Fairchild's president, chairman and CEO. "There's a growing demand for new products, and our Phase 2 growth plan is designed to increase our share of the growing semiconductor market."Commenting on the move to Carlsbad, Michael Hollabaugh, vice president of Fairchild's Mixed Signal Business Unit said, "This new space is better suited for a state-of-the-art product development lab. The move will enable us to double the size of our product development lab and increase our contribution to Fairchild's aggressive introduction plans for the next generation of new high value products."Fairchild also announced the promotion of two vice presidents in Global Operations. Laurenz Schmidt will oversee front-end global operations, including expansion and manufacturing facility management, while K.T. Tan will oversee back-end operations, directing worldwide assembly and development. Schmidt previously served as Fairchild's vice president of operations for Discrete Power and Signal Technologies Group and managing director of the South Portland plant. Tan served as Fairchild's managing director of the Penang, Malaysia facility.