Richard Hong

Mr. Hong has more than 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. He began his career at Samsung Electronics as a photolithography process engineer and was promoted several times, eventually becoming manager of process engineering, SSI, America. He then joined KLA-Tencor, where he served in a number of positions, including senior director of strategic marketing, Viper Division and senior director of sales, Wafer metrology Group. He was later appointed vice president and general manager of KLA-Tencor's Samsung Business Unit-Korea, and became president of KLA-Tencor Korea in 2004.

In 2008, Hong received the prestigious Bob Graham Award from Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) in recognition of his pioneering work in introducing wafer metrology inline monitoring to semiconductor fabrication. Hong received his master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Yonsei (Seoul, South Korea), an executive MBA from the Hass School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, and an MBA in marketing from Golden Gate University (San Francisco, Calif.).