Yost takes over as CEO at Cavendish Kinetics

LONDON — Cavendish Kinetics, the company developing CMOS-compatible one-time programmable and reprogrammable memories using MEMS technology, has appointed Dennis Yost CEO, replacing Mike Beunder. The company said Beunder resigned for "personal reasons."

Yost joined Cavendish Kinetics' board of directors in September 2006 and will continue to serve on the board. He has over 18 years experience in the industry including vice president and general manager at Novellus Systems, general manager and managing director at Applied Materials, COO of Light Path Technologies, engineering management and engineering positions at Texas Instruments, as well as engineering positions at Intel.

Cavendish (Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands), which was spun out of the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University, England in 1994 by Professor Charles Smith, has developed micromechanical memory elements, miniature relays, that it claims can be integrated into CMOS, or any other process technology.

Cavendish been working with the Institut fur Mikroelektronik Stuttgart, in Germany, to build prototype memories and picked up $6.5 million in venture capital funding in 2001.

Luis Arzubi, chairman of the board for Cavendish Kinetics, commented: "Dennis' ….previous experience with both semiconductor related equipment and materials, and with taking novel process technology from development to production, will be instrumental in driving the company in the next stage of its growth."