SkyWater Appoints John Sakamoto as President and Chief Operating Officer

Company prepares for strategic growth in the face of unprecedented opportunities for the U.S. semiconductor industry

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SkyWater Technology (NASDAQ: SKYT), the trusted technology realization partner, announced that John Sakamoto will be joining the company as president and chief operating officer, effective September 25, 2023. In his new role, Sakamoto will be responsible for all day-to-day business and manufacturing operations, driving consistent profitability, implementing growth strategies, and ensuring smooth and efficient operations across the enterprise.

During the business transformation initiative currently underway, which SkyWater launched with third party consultants earlier this year, the company determined that an operational leader with Sakamoto’s skills and experience would help accelerate the transformation process aimed at achieving greater levels of scale, revenue, and profitability.

Reporting to CEO Thomas Sonderman, Sakamoto will join SkyWater with 25 years of experience in various executive leadership positions with Altera, Intel, and Marvell, where he consistently achieved financial and strategic objectives through the implementation of effective business processes. His expertise includes market strategy, organizational growth, general management, business unit leadership, sales, operations, engineering, and acquisition integration.

“The semiconductor industry has an unprecedented opportunity before it, driven by the ever-increasing demand for new technologies manufactured in the U.S., including emerging growth applications such as AI, and further bolstered by the potential of significant CHIPS funding over the next several years,” said Sonderman. “This is exactly the right time to bring strong operational leadership to our organization. As a long-time consumer of foundry services, John will bring a strong customer-centric focus to SkyWater as we grow and scale our business model. I look forward to collaborating with him to propel the company to new heights.”

"I'm very excited about SkyWater's pioneering Technology as a Service (TaaS) business model, which enables customers to bring innovative solutions to market quickly," said Sakamoto. "With the growing demand for a U.S.-based semiconductor supply chain, SkyWater's onshore silicon manufacturing solutions and diverse technology capabilities position the company well for tremendous growth as this decade unfolds."

About SkyWater Technology

SkyWater (NASDAQ: SKYT) is a U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturer and a DMEA-accredited Category 1A Trusted Foundry. SkyWater’s Technology as a Service (TaaS) model streamlines the path to production for customers with development services, volume production and heterogeneous integration solutions in its world-class U.S. facilities. This pioneering model enables innovators to co-create the next wave of technology with diverse categories including mixed-signal CMOS, ROICs, rad-hard ICs, power management, MEMS, superconducting ICs, photonics, carbon nanotubes and interposers. SkyWater serves growing markets including aerospace & defense, automotive, biomedical, cloud & computing, consumer, industrial and IoT. For more information, visit www.skywatertechnology.com/.

SkyWater Technology Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements that are based on the Company’s current expectations or forecasts of future events, rather than past events and outcomes, and such statements are not guarantees of future performance. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, which may cause the Company’s actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Key factors that could cause the Company’s actual results to be different than expected or anticipated include, but are not limited to, factors discussed in the “Risk Factors” section of its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and in other documents that the Company files with the SEC, which are available at http://www.sec.gov. The Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

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