T. J. Rodgers

Early life Thurman John Rodgers was born on March 15, 1948, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He goes back to nearby Green Bay, Wisconsin several times a year to attend Green Bay Packers football games. His father was a car salesman and worked for General Motors and his mother was a school teacher, with a master's degree in radio electronics. He was a Sloan scholar at Dartmouth College and played on the Dartmouth Big Green football team. In 1970 he received his bachelor's degree, graduating as salutatorian with majors in chemistry and physics. He received his master's degree (1973) and Ph.D. (1975) in electrical engineering from Stanford University. While pursuing his Ph.D. degree, Rodgers invented the VMOS process technology, which he later licensed to American Microsystems, Inc. He founded Cypress Semiconductor in 1982. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala City.

Career

After finishing a doctorate at Stanford, he turned down a job offer from Intel, saying that CEO Andrew S. Grove was unlikely to give him the freedom to pursue his own projects. Cypress is a semiconductor design and manufacturing company, producing PSoCs, microcontroller, IoT, wireless and USB, PMICs, memory and sensor chips. As CEO, Rodgers was responsible for more than 30 acquisitions, including SunPower and the IoT portfolio of Broadcom Corporation. He stepped down as CEO in April 2016.

Proxy fight In 2017 Rodgers conducted a successful proxy fight against Cypress. He raised concerns pertaining to director compensation, state-sponsored foreign competition as well as inherent conflicts of interest. After filing a lawsuit against the company in April 2017, Rodgers sought to remove executive chairman Ray Bingham and Éric Benhamou from the Cypress board and nominated Dan McCranie and Camillo Martino as directors. Rodgers argued that Bingham's role as a co-founder of Canyon Bridge, a private equity fund supported by the Government of China, of high efficiency solar cells produced by SunPower. As SunPower faced financial problems in 2001, Rodgers tried to convince the Cypress board Rodgers and SunPower CEO Richard Swanson had met in the 70s at Stanford University. But as the Cypress board of directors was not interested in saving the struggling company Rodgers wrote a check himself for $750,000.

In 2024 SunPower declared bankruptcy and TJ Rodger's company Complete Solar entered into a stalking horse bid on particular assets of the SunPower company including the company Name and stock ticker. In 2025 the company has branded back to SunPower where TJ serves as chairman of the board and CEO.

Enphase Energy In January 2017, Rodgers invested US$5 million in Enphase Energy, a renewable energy firm specialized in energy management and the production of solar micro-inverters, which transform solar energy to alternating current for the electrical grid. In addition to his investment, Rodgers joined Enphase's board of directors.

Board memberships Bloom Energy, a fuel cell producer Enovix, producer of silicon lithium-ion batteries Enphase Energy, energy technology company Complete Solaria, a vertically integrated residential solar company FarmX, precision agriculture company FTC Solar, a renewable energy company Bespoken Spirits Inc., a beverage technology company

Rodgers also served as director of the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Trustee of Dartmouth College After successfully launching a petition drive to get his name on the ballot, Rodgers won the alumni trustee election of Dartmouth College in 2004, becoming the first successful petition candidate since 1980. He won with a comfortable margin. As trustee, Rodgers’ major concerns were removing the College's speech code, Following the campaign of Rodgers, three additional independent trustees were elected in 2005 and 2007. Rodgers was reelected as trustee in 2009. to make five Pinot Noir wines. This includes stomping the grapes with feet and siphoning the wine by hand. Also, no mechanized pumps are used. Clos de la Tech combines these old techniques with high tech monitoring and measures to optimize the conditions for the crops and to handle grapes and wine as gently as possible. As winemaker, Rodgers invented a patented wine press and computer monitored fermenters.

Comments on diversity In 1996, Rodgers received a form letter from Sister Doris Gormley, the Director of Corporate Social Responsibility for The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, encouraging him to hire women and minorities on the Cypress board. He replied with a long letter defending his hiring practices and philosophy. This exchange between Rodgers and Gormley drew considerable media attention. In 1999, he wrote an editorial in the San Jose Mercury News denouncing Jesse Jackson's attack on Cypress Semiconductor on what Jackson claimed was discriminatory hiring practices.

Personal life Rodgers is an avid jogger and wine enthusiast. He is a supporter of several charities, including Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, and served as a trustee on the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees from 2004 to 2012. He is the husband of Valeta Massey.

Awards and recognition

1986: Entrepreneur of the Year by City of Santa Clara, California 1988: ENCORE (Entrepreneurial Company of the Year) Award from the Stanford University Business School 1996: "CEO of the year" – Financial World US3924265 – Low capacitance V groove MOS NOR gate and method of manufacture

1976 US3975221 – Low capacitance V groove MOS NOR gate and method of manufacture

1980 US4222063 – VMOS Floating gate memory with breakdown voltage loweringregion US4222062 – VMOS Floating gate memory device

1981 CA1115426 – U-groove mos device

1988 US5835401 – DRAM with hidden refresh US4764248 – Rapid thermal nitridized oxide locos process

1999 US5977638 – Edge metal for interconnect layers

2000 US6131140 – Integrated cache memory with system control logic and adaptation of RAM bus to a cache pinout

2001 US6185126 – Self-initializing RAM-based programmable device

2004 US6835616 – Method of forming a floating metal structure in an integratedcircuit US6730545 – Method of performing back-end manufacturing of an integrated circuit device US2004076712 – Fermentation tank wine press

2005 US6903002 – Low-k dielectric layer with air gaps US6847218 – Probe card with an adapter layer for testing integrated circuits

2006 US7045387 – Method of performing back-end manufacturing of an integrated circuit

2007 US7227804 – Current source architecture for memory device standby current reduction

2008 US2008315847 – Programmable floating gate reference US2008102160 – Wine-making press

2009 US7507944 – Non-planar packaging of image sensor

2017 US9624094 – Hydrogen barriers in a copper interconnect process