Exar CEO and President Pete Rodriguez Resigns

Exar Corporation announced that Pete Rodriguez has resigned as Chief Executive Officer and President of the company and as a member of the Board of Directors.

"I am proud of the successes that have been achieved during my tenure as President and CEO but I have decided, for personal reasons, to resign," said Pete Rodriguez. "I believe the company has an excellent leadership team and now has a much stronger basis for profitable growth. I remain optimistic about the company’s future."

"We thank Pete for his Board and executive contributions and wish him the best," stated Richard L. Leza, Chairman of the Board.

Richard Leza, Chairman of Exar’s Board of Directors, will assume, on an interim basis, the duties of Chief Executive Officer and President, effective immediately.

The Board of Directors will immediately commence a search for a permanent replacement for the Chief Executive Officer and President.

Leza will continue to serve as a member of the Board of Directors and on the Compensation and Corporate Governance and Nominating Committees of the Board.

 Pete Rodriguez serves as Exar’s President and Chief Executive Officer as
of April 28, 2008 and joined the company as a Director in
October 2005. He has over 25 years of engineering, sales and
senior management experience in the semiconductor and electronics
industry. Rodriguez was the Chief Marketing Officer of Virage Logic
Corporation, a semiconductor intellectual property supplier, prior to
his current position. He previously served as President, CEO
and a Director of Xpedion Design Systems, Inc., a private,
venture-funded developer of electronic design automation solutions for
wireless communication circuits and systems. He held this
role for six years until Xpedion was acquired by Agilent Technologies in
2006. Prior to Xpedion, Rodriguez held senior management positions
in sales and marketing at Escalade Corporation, a provider of software
for chip design acquired by Mentor Graphics. He also held
senior sales management positions at LSI Logic, as well as product
management and process engineering positions at Aerojet Electronics,
Teledyne Microwave and Siliconix.

Rodriguez holds an MBA from
Pepperdine University, an MSEE from California Polytechnic University
and a BS in Chemical Engineering from California Institute of
Technology.