Ken Mackay VP Technology Development, Crocus

Crocus Technology announces the appointment of Dr. Ken Mackay as vice-president of technology development.

 He was previously director of memory cell engineering at Crocus, a post he held for two and a half years, where he was in charge of developing and integrating magnetic and thermal properties of semiconductor materials. Prior to that, he was the magnetic test and product engineering manager for Crocus, the position he held when he first joined Crocus from Hitachi in 2006.

Mackay’s new responsibilities include integrating Crocus’ magnetically enhanced semiconductor technology, which is highly suited to mobile security, embedded microcontrollers, secure data storage and harsh environment electronics, at the industrial level. He will manage a team of 30 based in Grenoble, France, and San Jose, CA, oversee 40 engineers and technicians from Crocus’ strategic partners Towerjazz and IBM, plus 60 researchers from Spintec, a nanomagnetic laboratory partly owned by micro- and nanotechnology research center CEA.

"Ken is highly talented with excellent technological credentials. He has an outstanding track record in fundamental R&D on novel magnetic devices, as well as a vast knowledge of product development in the magnetic data storage industry," said Bertrand Cambou, executive chairman of Crocus. "Ken has also been a valued team member since joining us in 2006. We are very pleased to place the final stage of the industrial processing of our magnetically enhanced semiconductor technology under his skilled leadership. We are on track to go to market with our Towerjazz products from Q2 and for our manufacturing to be fully operational by Q3."

Mackay’s new tasks build upon his seven-year with Crocus, where he was instrumental in advancing the integration of magnetic materials to achieve product quality and performance levels. He also played a critical role in bringing Crocus’ novel Magnetic Logic Unit (MLU) technology from concept to reality through the on-going R&D collaboration at IBM in Yorktown. MLU is a self-referenced magnetic cell design that offers advantages for applications demanding high speed, security and robust performance at lower cost.

"I am honored to have the opportunity to lead the magnetic materials research and CMOS integration technology teams at Crocus. They have already achieved major milestones in integrating magnetic materials through control of defect density. This has allowed our technology to achieve product levels of quality," said Mackay. "Crocus has exciting business prospects because of the strong potential of its magnetically enhanced semiconductor technology and the unique qualities of its proprietary MLU technology. I am looking forward to contributing further to the growth of the company."

Mackay has over 20 years’ extensive research and development expertise in the field of magnetoresistive materials, and international project management experience from leading industrial firms. Prior to joining Crocus in 2006, he worked in the Hitachi San Jose Research Center, where, during his one-year tenure there as a research staff member, he achieved testing and characterization to improve the design of advanced TMR and CPP-GMR magnetic field sensors for read heads. Prior to that, he held the posts of senior engineer for advanced read head development at Hitachi GST and IBM, where he managed the process of defining requirements for next-generation head testing. Under his guidance, novel test devices and algorithms were developed and implemented into a high-volume manufacturing site in Mexico.

Mackay began his career in 1991, first as staff European community research fellow with French scientific research center CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) for three years, followed by five years as a staff research scientist at CNRS. He holds 12 patents and has published 25 technical papers.

He earned a PhD in Physics from Cambridge University.