Education
Cypress Launches Fast Track(TM) University Alliance Program Featuring Global Design Competition, Web Resource Center, Product Donations and New-Hire Rotations
Source: Cypress Semiconductor Corp.
Sep 25, 2006, 08:24

Former Xilinx University Program Head, Patrick Kane, Named Director of New Cypress Initiative

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE via COLLEGIATE PRESSWIRE)--Sept. 25, 2006--Cypress Semiconductor Corp. (NYSE:CY) today launched a new, multifaceted University Alliance Program that helps put electrical engineering and computer science students on a Fast Track to career success. The program includes a global design competition and a new university alliance website (www.cypress.com/cuap) providing access to a myriad of free design resources, evaluation boards and online courses. It also includes product donations for lab projects and an enhanced rotation program that exposes students to multiple job functions in just six months.

"Cypress is in a unique position to help students develop industry expertise that is valuable to companies globally," said Babak Hedayati, senior vice president of Marketing at Cypress. "Our easy-to-use and easy-to-access programmable system-on-chip products, such as PSoC(R), can be used as Innovation Platforms(TM) for students to develop their analog and digital expertise. This popular platform
is used by thousands of customers worldwide to implement new products such as MP3 players, cell phones, laptop computers and appliances."

The Cypress University Alliance Program is being spearheaded by new-hire Patrick Kane, a seasoned industry veteran who has joined Cypress to drive the program worldwide. Kane joined Cypress from Xilinx where he had previously headed up that company's university outreach effort.

"Cypress's University Alliance Program helps students 'overtake the ordinary career,' by providing access to a wide array of design resources, educational materials and products, and by placing new-hires on a rotation program to help them maximize their opportunities for success," Kane said. "This experience enables them to develop skills that can help them quickly become productive in
fast-paced eletrical engineering and computer science careers."

One key component of Cypress's Fast Track University Alliance Program is a new website, www.cypress.com/cuap, that includes discussion boards, feature stories about Cypress's work with universities, software downloads and a host of other educational and design resources. The site also provides information about how professors can apply for product donations and discounts of up to 50 percent off retail pricing on select Cypress devices and development kits. Another key website feature is the technical support knowledge base that enables 24-hour access to articles addressing many common design questions.

Cypress's Innovator Design Challenge, a competition for students who design with Cypress products. This global contest will enable students to compete for significant cash prizes and an opportunity to have their projects considered for seed funding. More information about this program will be announced next week.

Cypress's enhanced New College Graduate Rotation Program is a structured six-month curriculum that provides product marketing engineers with hands-on experience in applications engineering, worldwide marketing and sales. Application engineers rotate through applications engineering, product marketing, business development, design engineering and field applications engineering. The rotation
program for product, test and design engineers includes applications engineering, fab experience and marketing. In addition to giving new-hires exposure to different professional disciplines, the rotation program increases the employees' technical and marketing knowledge, helps develop career skills, and provides important relationship building and on-the-job training.

One of the schools where Cypress's university program has made a difference is Mississippi State University, where engineering student interns and graduates have received hands-on lab training with Cypress products, and have played a significant role at the company's nearby design center. "It's extremely rewarding to see that our students have been well-received and have done well at Cypress," said MSU's recently retired engineering professor Donald Trotter, who started the VLSI program at MSU and ran it for nearly 25 years. "The fact that so many (of our students) have come out of Cypress's Design Center in Starkville, Miss., and gone on to have very successful careers at Cypress is very pleasing."

More information about Cypress's Fast Track University Alliance Program and how schools can engage with Cypress is available at the program website: www.cypress.com/cuap.

About Cypress

Cypress solutions perform: consumer, computation, data communications, automotive, industrial, and solar. Leveraging proprietary silicon processes, Cypress's product portfolio includes a broad selection of wired and wireless USB devices, CMOS image sensors, timing solutions, specialty memories, high-bandwidth synchronous and micropower memory products, optical solutions and reconfigurable mixed-signal arrays. Cypress trades on the NYSE under the ticker symbol CY. Visit us at www.cypress.com.

Cypress and the Cypress logo are registered trademarks of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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