PLX Technology announced the appointment of Ralph Schmitt as president and chief executive officer, and as a member of its board of directors, effective November 3, 2008. Schmitt will succeed Mike Salameh, who will retire as chief executive officer. Salameh served as PLX’s president and chief executive officer since co-founding the Company in 1986. He will continue as a full-time employee for a short transition period and then continue to serve as a member of the board of directors.
During 2008, Schmitt consulted with a variety of venture capitalists, as well as acted as chief executive officer of Legend Silicon, a privately funded Chinese terrestrial digital TV semiconductor company. From 2005 to 2007, he was chief executive officer of Sipex, an analog semiconductor company, which merged with Exar in 2007. Upon the completion of the merger, he was appointed chief executive officer of Exar, a position he held until the end of 2007. From 1999 to 2005 Schmitt was the executive vice president of sales, marketing and business development for Cypress Semiconductor. PLX Technology is a supplier of PCI Express and other standard I/O interconnect semiconductors to the communications, server, storage, embedded-control, and consumer markets.
