JOHN BEHNKE
Mr. John R. Behnke has 35 years of semiconductor industry experience. His consulting efforts leverage his broad industry experience which combines commercial logic and memory manufacturing; SOS, III-V and 3-D DoD/Agency low volume specialty development & fabrication; and most recently his subject matter expertise in Smart Manufacturing and advanced industrial engineering software solutions.
As the GM of Final Phase Systems an INFICON Product Line, Mr. Behnke leads a team that develop and deploy SMART software solutions that enable fabs to improve their manufacturing efficiency. FPS’s suite of software solutions are built upon a comprehensive Digital Twin of a factory which enables advanced Fab Scheduling and optimized WIP movement as well as other related advanced capabilities. He is one of the Chairs of the Semi North America Smart Manufacturing Initiative and gives talks on Smart Manufacturing / Industry 4.0 around the globe. His team and their Strategic IDM partners are pushing Smart beyond manufacturing efficiency to include yield and product quality in support of the Automotive Industries Zero Defect project.
Prior to his current role at FPS Mr. Behnke served as the CEO and President of Novati Technologies which provided contract manufacturing and development services with a focus on the commercialization and production of next generation products. Novati was the only Trusted Foundry that provided a domestic source for 2.5 and 3D wafer-level integration addressing: Aerospace & Defense, Life Sciences and the Telecom/Datacom market. He led this successful transformation of Novati into a profitable business which after 12 consecutive profitable quarters was sold to one of its strategic customers Skorpios Technologies in October 2017. This transaction was a win-win-win for Novati, Skorpios and Novati’s customers/suppliers as it improves Novati’s economic position and provides a path to higher volume manufacturing.
Prior to Novati he worked at Intermoleculor and was the SVP and GM of the Semiconductor Group from July 2011 to March 2013 and served as its VP of Sales and Marketing from October 2009 to July 2011. Intermolecular delivers innovation using a High Productivity Combinatorial™ platform that increases R&D productivity by 10-100 times. His Technical Sales leadership enabled IMI to go public in November of 2011.
Before IMI he was CVP for Front End Manufacturing, Process R&D and Technology Transfers at Spansion. His responsibilities included the Sub Micron Development Center which was the only full flow 300mm R&D line ever built in Silicon Valley. It concurrently developed multiple technology nodes while running pilot production of the latest generation process prior to its “copy-smart” transfer to internal and partner foundries. Mr. Behnke leveraged his prior manufacturing experience to dramatically improve the productivity of the R&D line.
Mr. Behnke’s previous roles at Spansion/AMD included NPI for its Wireless Business Unit and Director of its Austin Fab 25 wafer fab where he oversaw the introduction of multiple technology nodes and was a founding member of AMD’s advanced process control (APC) team which led the Semiconductor industry’s development and use of APC. Prior to Spansion and AMD, Mr. Behnke worked at the Hughes Research Lab in Malibu, California engaged in InP/GaAs HEMT Low Noise Amplifier development and pilot production. He led the team which took a lab scale process to Class-S level production including the initial qualification of the HRL Microelectronics Center. Mr. Behnke also worked for RCA on its CMOS and SOS radiation hardened lines in Palm Beach Gardens FL.
Mr. Behnke earned a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering with an Industrial Engineering Minor from Marquette University, and completed a Clean Energy program at the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Behnke holds five U.S. patents.
