|
Mario Licciardello was born in Catania (Italy) in 1942. He graduated from the University of Catania in 1964 with a degree in Physics. In 1965, Licciardello joint SGS-ATES and has spent his entire career in a broad range of different positions of increasing responsibility within companies that have grown into the current STMicroelectronics.
His first professional successes include the process and device engineering of the ‘Mesa’ transistors, which later evolved into the widely adopted planar (‘single surface’) manufacturing technology. At the end of the 1960s, Licciardello helped launch the Company’s advanced R&D center in Castelletto with Europe’s first Clean Room, a controlled environment for fabrication of integrated circuits (IC).
In 1970, Licciardello moved to the Company’s headquarters in Agrate and started working in the field of MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) manufacturing technology. He pioneered the development of the Company’s first MOS integrated circuits and contributed to the market success of several product lines, including EPROM/EEPROM non-volatile memories and microcontrollers.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Licciardello worked in Corporate Strategic Planning and oversaw the Company’s investment budget and long-term planning. He contributed substantially to a number of key plans and structural actions, including a successful shareholder recapitalization.
In 1993, Licciardello moved to STMicroelectronics’ Memory Products Group.
As the General Manager of the EEPROM Division, he introduced several important technology innovations, such as the ‘double-poly’ process and the SPI (Serial Peripheral bus). Under his management, the Division achieved solid revenue and market share growth, bringing the Company to the second position in EEPROM sales worldwide.
In 1996, Licciardello was appointed Group VP and General Manager of the Flash Memory Division. In this highly complex and competitive market, Licciardello managed to refocus ST´s memory product strategy to meet the ambitious target to grow from a marginal player to one of the top 3 Flash suppliers within five years’ time. Under Licciardello’s direction, ST achieved impressive sales growth from below 100M$ to above 1.2 B$, which drove the Company from below 3% to above 16 % market share in NOR Flash. Through successful collaboration with Hynix, ST also accelerates its advancement in the NAND Flash market.
In 2003, Licciardello became Deputy General Manager of the Memory Products Group and in January 2005 he was promoted to Corporate Vice President, Memory Products Group.
In January 2007, Licciardello was appointed Corporate Vice President and General Manager of ST’s newly created Flash Memories Group (FMG).
Following the announcement in May 2007 of a new independent company that will combine R&D, manufacturing, and sales and marketing assets of Intel and STMicroelectronics in non-volatile memories, Mario Licciardello was appointed Chief Operating Officer-designate for the new company. Named Numonyx, the new memory-market heavyweight is expected to be launched, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, in the second half of 2007.
| 