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TriTech Microelectronics announced on July 25, 1996, that Keith Jackson would become president, Bettina Briz vice president of worldwide marketing, and Ted Friedland vice president of worldwide sales. Briz and Friedland would report to Jackson, who was assigned responsibility for worldwide operations and a stated goal of strengthening TriTech’s position in Asia, the United States, and Europe. The announcement appeared in trade publications on August 1, 1996.
What TriTech announced
The appointment report identified three distinct roles rather than a single combined sales-and-marketing post. Jackson was to lead worldwide operations; Briz was responsible for worldwide marketing; and Friedland was assigned responsibility for TriTech’s worldwide sales offices. Both vice presidents reported to Jackson, according to the contemporaneous EE Times report.
| Executive | TriTech role | Prior position reported in 1996 | Stated TriTech responsibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keith Jackson | President | Vice president and general manager, analog mixed-signal systems division, National Semiconductor | Worldwide operations; strengthening the company’s market position in Asia, the United States, and Europe |
| Bettina Briz | Vice president of worldwide marketing | Director of the displays segment, National Semiconductor | Worldwide marketing |
| Ted Friedland | Vice president of worldwide sales | Director of area-group sales at Toshiba America, covering the United States, Canada, and Mexico | TriTech’s worldwide sales offices |
The appointments were announced July 25; August 1 is the publication date, not the date the executives took their roles. The publication date is also recorded by EDN’s version of the announcement.
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Jackson joined TriTech after approximately ten years at National Semiconductor. His most recent stated role there was vice president and general manager of the analog mixed-signal systems division, reporting to National’s office of the president. In the TriTech announcement, his remit was broader than either of the two functional vice-presidential roles: he was responsible for worldwide operations and for improving the company’s market position across three regions.
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The 1996 report calls Jackson president; it does not call him chief executive officer. Later corporate records provide a retrospective chronology: Fairchild Semiconductor’s 2000 annual report places Jackson at TriTech from 1996 to 1998, then at Fairchild, while ON Semiconductor’s 2002 annual report says he became ON’s president and CEO in November 2002. Those later records corroborate his subsequent career, not a CEO title at TriTech in 1996. See the Fairchild annual report and ON Semiconductor annual report.
Briz and Friedland’s appointments
Bettina Briz: worldwide marketing
Briz joined from National Semiconductor after approximately seven years there. Her latest position identified in the 1996 account was director of the displays segment. The announcement names her new remit as worldwide marketing, but does not detail the organization she led, her specific marketing program, or her later tenure and career.
Ted Friedland: worldwide sales
Friedland came from Toshiba America, where he had been director of area-group sales for the United States, Canada, and Mexico. TriTech assigned him responsibility for its worldwide sales offices. The report does not specify the offices’ locations or establish whether his remit covered direct sales, distributors, or both. A later company profile gives him a marketing-and-sales title, but that later description should not replace the distinct worldwide-marketing and worldwide-sales titles reported in 1996.
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Historical company material describes TriTech Microelectronics International Pte Ltd. as a Singapore-based fabless IC supplier associated with the Singapore Technologies Group. It says the business was separated from Chartered Semiconductor in 1991 as Chartered focused on foundry services. Its described work included customer-specific ICs and application-specific standard products for communications, graphics, pen-based computers, data processing, and multimedia, alongside analog and mixed-signal design and high-volume mixed-signal testing. The profile is available through the Integrated Circuit Engineering Corporation company profile.
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That profile gives approximate historical scale figures: sales of about $57 million in 1994 and $75 million in 1995, with approximately 60 employees in 1994 and 106 in 1995. These are figures from the company profile, not the appointment announcement, and should be read as approximate historical data rather than as audited results presented in the 1996 personnel report.
Later court records add product-market context: TriTech had facilities in Singapore and California and designed, manufactured, and sold audio chips. The Federal Circuit’s account in Crystal Semiconductor Corp. v. TriTech says TriTech began manufacturing 16-bit audio CODECs in Singapore in 1994 and sold them worldwide, including through OPTi for the U.S. PC market. This helps explain why global marketing and sales responsibilities were operationally relevant; it does not establish that the appointments were caused by any particular product line or later litigation.
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- Product Details: Hardcover: 1392 pages, Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 5 Har/Cdr edition (August 30, 2007)
- Language: English, ISBN-10: 0195338839, ISBN-13: 978-0195338836
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Why the appointments mattered
Taken together, the appointments placed overall operations, global marketing, and worldwide sales under a defined leadership structure. Jackson brought senior analog and mixed-signal management experience; Briz’s assignment was marketing, while Friedland’s was sales-office responsibility. Given TriTech’s international markets and product activity, the structure is consistent with an effort to strengthen commercial reach across regions. That is an interpretation of the roles and stated geographic priority, not a separately reported strategy or proof of a specific expansion plan.
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What happened after the announcement
Jackson’s TriTech presidency ended by 1998: a March 1998 EDN report named Marc Birnkrant as TriTech’s new president. Fairchild’s later filing places Jackson’s TriTech service in the 1996–1998 period and records his subsequent Fairchild role. The 1996 appointment report itself offers no succession rationale, executive quotations, compensation, financial targets, or product-launch plans, and it does not document how long Briz or Friedland remained with TriTech.
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Historical sources use varying legal-name forms, including TriTech Microelectronics International and TriTech Microelectronics, Inc.; the 1996 announcement’s company and job titles are retained here rather than projected from later records.
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