Saul Zales CEO, Contour Semiconductor

Contour Semiconductor, Inc., a provider dedicated to producing low cost, high-volume, non-volatile memory chips, has appointed veteran semiconductor industry executive Saul Zales as CEO.  

He will lead development of next generation non-volatile chips, addressing the $25 billion NAND flash memory market opportunity with a technology that is cheaper, higher-performance and simpler to produce than flash.  

 Zales has 28 years of experience in all management aspects of the semiconductor industry, including engineering, marketing, business management and equity investments. He previously served as EVP of corporate business development at Fusion-io, and was VP and GM of corporate development at Numonyx B.V. prior to that company’s acquisition by Micron, where the Numonyx technology became the foundation for Micron’s NOR flash memory business. He was also at Intel Corporation for 24 years, last serving as director of its flash memory business, where he guided the company’s joint ventures, joint development programs and technology licensing related to flash technology.

“There aren’t many opportunities to lead a truly transformational company so I’m delighted to join Contour and its elite team of executives and technologists that are poised to reshape the NAND market,” said Zales. “Contour’s new chip technology has the potential to be every bit as disruptive to the solid state flash market as flash was to HDDs drives.”

Contour is a developing a new generation of non-volatile chips that overcomes the scalability, durability and performance limitations of NAND flash. The patented technology also extends to a new non-volatile memory fabrication process that reduces the process steps by 65% compared to NAND flash, reducing the cost of a building a memory fab and creating a chip cost profile that makes the technology affordable for a complete spectrum of consumer and enterprise applications, from cell phones and tablets to big storage.

Contour is headquartered in Massachusetts, with a development facility in Silicon Valley. The company is backed by American Capital, Fairhaven Capital Partners, Still River Funds, Eastward Capital Partners and private investors.