Peregrine Semiconductor, a supplier of the advanced RF CMOS ICs, has announced that Craig H. Ensley has joined its executive team as president and chief operating officer (COO). He has also been elected to the board of directors. Ensley brings some 30 years of broad experience in the semiconductor and systems technology industries, spanning venture capital start-ups to multi-hundred-million dollar public corporations. Most recently Ensley was senior vice president at Cirrus Logic.

Ensley will be responsible for leading Peregrine’s operations to meet the market’s explosive demand for UltraCMOS RFICs.

"We set out to fill a tall order: to find an individual with not only a strong background ramping a startup IC company, but also an understanding of the complex issues associated with a billion-dollar company,” said Jim Cable, CEO of Peregrine Semiconductor. “Ensley’s relevant mixed-signal product experience, global business relationships, and comprehensive understanding of the IC industry made him an ideal candidate. His impressive ability to establish a vision and motivate a corporation toward operational excellence made him the right choice for Peregrine. His leadership, loyalty and extraordinary sense of fundamental business operations will ensure that the foundation upon which we are building Peregrine is rock solid, and poised for the decade ahead,“ he added.

“The Peregrine opportunity is an intensely exciting and challenging one,” said Ensley. “The high performance mixed-signal business is large and growing; our growth markets – such as mobile handsets and broadband RF – are innovative and leading-edge; and our proprietary UltraCMOS technology is truly revolutionary. The talent in the company is unmatched in our industry. Couple these facts with the momentum Peregrine has developed in the recent couple of years, and I’m thrilled at the opportunity to join the team.”

Prior to Cirrus Logic, Ensley was an executive in the team that started Crystal Semiconductor. At Crystal, Ensley was initially vice president of marketing and subsequently general manager of several divisions. Previously, he led marketing for the semiconductor division of Rockwell International. Ensley has an M.B.A. from Stanford University and B.S. degrees in both applied physics and economics from the University of California at San Diego.