Ultra Clean Holdings Inc

Overview

Ultra Clean Holdings, Inc., (“UCT”, the “Company” or “We”) is a leading developer and supplier of critical subsystems, components, parts, and ultra-high purity cleaning and analytical services primarily for the semiconductor industry. UCT offers its customers an integrated outsourced solution for major subassemblies, improved design-to-delivery cycle times, design for manufacturability, prototyping and part and component manufacturing, as well as tool chamber parts cleaning and coating, and micro-contamination analytical services. We report results for two operating segments: Products and Services. Our Products segment primarily designs, engineers and manufactures production tools, components, parts, and modules and subsystems for the semiconductor and display capital equipment markets. Products include chemical delivery modules, frame assemblies, gas delivery systems, fluid delivery systems, precision robotics and process modules as well as other high-level assemblies. Our Services segment provides ultra-high purity parts cleaning, process tool part recoating, surface encapsulation and high sensitivity micro contamination analysis primarily for the semiconductor device makers and wafer fabrication equipment (“WFE”) markets.

We ship a majority of our products and provide most of our services to U.S. registered customers with locations both in and outside the U.S. In addition to U.S. manufacturing and service operations, we manufacture products and provide parts cleaning and other related services in our Asia Pacific, Europe and Middle East (“EMEA”) facilities to support local and U.S. based customers. We conduct our operating activities primarily through our subsidiaries.

Over the long-term, we believe the semiconductor market we serve will continue to grow due to multi-year industry demand from a broad range of drivers, such as new CPU architectures that enable higher performance servers necessary for cloud, artificial intelligence (“AI”) and machine learning applications. We also believe that semiconductor original equipment manufacturers (“OEM”) are increasingly relying on partners like UCT to fulfill their expanding capacity requirements. Additionally, we believe that we will continue to benefit as device manufacturers rely on precision cleaning and coating to manufacture ever more complex devices.

On October 25, 2023, we acquired 100% of the shares of HIS Innovations Group (“HIS”), a privately held company based in Hillsboro, Oregon. HIS is a leading supplier to the semiconductor sub-fab segment including the design, manufacturing, and integration of components, process solutions, and fully integrated sub-systems. The purchase price was comprised of initial cash consideration of $46.5 million, subject to customary post-closing adjustments, and up to $70.0 million of additional cash consideration that may be payable subject to the performance of the acquired business during the remainder of fiscal years 2023, 2024, and 2025. The acquisition strengthens our leadership in developing and supplying critical products to the semiconductor industry, and extends our reach into the sub-fab area.

In 2022, the Board of Directors approved a share repurchase program authorizing the Company to purchase up to an aggregate of $150.0 million of the Company’s common stock over a three-year period. In fiscal years 2023 and 2022, approximately 1.1 million and 0.3 million shares were repurchased under this program with an aggregate cost of $29.4 million and $12.1 million and an average price of $29.16 and $35.31 per share, respectively.

Our international revenues represented 69.6%, 68.9% and 65.1% of total revenues for fiscal years ended 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. See Note 13 to the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for further information about our geographic revenues.

Our Suite of Offerings

We are a leading developer and supplier of critical subsystems, parts, components and ultra-high purity cleaning and analytical services primarily for the semiconductor industry. We offer our customers an integrated outsourced solution for major subassemblies, improved design-to-delivery cycle times, design for manufacturability, prototyping and component manufacturing, tool chamber parts cleaning and coating and micro contamination analytical services. We offer our customers:

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A vertically integrated solution for complex and highly configurable systems. We provide our customers a broad outsourced solution for the development, design, component sourcing and cleaning, prototyping, engineering, and manufacturing and testing of advanced systems. We utilize our weldment and frame fabrication capabilities together with highly specialized engineering, global supply chain management, and assembly capabilities to produce high performance products that are customized to meet the needs of equipment suppliers and chipmakers. We enable our customers to minimize their overall number of suppliers, simplify their supply chain and reduce their inventories.

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Parts and components. We offer our customers a wide range of gas delivery solutions such as ultra-clean valves, high purity connectors, industrial process connectors and valves, pneumatic actuators, manifolds and safety solutions, hoses, pressure gauges, gas line and component heaters, as well as complex weldments. These products comply with the highest quality standards to ensure accelerated performance in a variety of demanding environments and applications in the semiconductor, oil and gas, chemical and refinery, power, transportation, analytical, and gas manufacturing markets.

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Subsystem manufacturing. Our experience with the demanding requirements in semiconductor equipment manufacturing has enabled us to become a leading developer and supplier of critical modules and subsystems. These assemblies include gas and fluid delivery solutions, wafer transport systems, mechatronic assemblies, process modules, and sub-fab process equipment support racks.

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Improved design-to-delivery cycle times. Our strong customer relationships and familiarity with their product requirements and the ever-changing needs of their customer base help us reduce their design-to-delivery cycle times. We seek to optimize our supply chain management, design and manufacturing coordination and controls to respond rapidly to order requests, enabling us to decrease product design and customization cycle times for our customers. Because our engineers work closely with our customers’ engineers and understand the fabrication, assembly and testing of their products, we often can improve their design for manufacturability, implement automation, thereby reducing their cost and improving their, quality and consistency.

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Testing capabilities. We utilize our technical expertise to test and characterize key gas delivery products. We have made significant investments in advanced analytical and automated test equipment, enabling us to test and qualify key gas delivery sub-systems and components. We can perform diagnostic tests, design verifications and failure analyses for our customers and suppliers.

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Increased integration with OEMs through local presence. Our local presence in close proximity to the facilities of most of our OEM customers enables us to remain closely integrated with their design, development and implementation teams. This level of integration enables us to respond quickly and efficiently to customer changes and requests.

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Precision fabrication. We design and manufacture weldments and frames with exacting standards to meet or exceed our customers’ needs. UCT has over 30 years of experience in the fabrication of complex gas delivery systems which enables us to provide cost competitiveness in our vertical integration model.

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Custom thermal control. We design and manufacture heaters, sensors, and controllers for precise temperature control. These products are complementary to our gas delivery systems products.

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Parts cleaning and coating and analytical verification: Through our Services business, we offer integrated device manufacturers (“IDM”) validated, ultra-high purity process tool chamber parts cleaning and coating services. Included in these services are tool part process optimization solutions that could lower the total cost of ownership for our customers. We also offer analytical verification of process tool chamber part cleaning effectiveness and micro contamination analysis of tool parts, wafers and depositions, chemicals, cleanroom materials, deionized water and airborne molecular contamination.

Our Strategy

Our strategy is to grow our position and increase our value to our customers as a leading solutions and service provider in the semiconductor markets we serve, while serving a limited number of other technologically similar market opportunities. Our strategy is comprised of the following key elements:

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Expand our solutions and service market share with semiconductor OEMs and IDMs. We believe that equipment outsourcing and service offerings among OEMs creates a significant market opportunity for us to grow our business with existing and new customers. We believe our customers will continue to outsource critical subsystems and that we are well positioned to capture a significant portion of these outsourcing opportunities. We believe that our continued focus on efficient manufacturing, reduced design-to-delivery cycle times, and high quality and reliability will also allow us to gain market share. Similarly, we believe there is room to gain market share with our cleaning and coating services, both with IDMs and OEMs, as customers typically outsource these solutions. By providing customers process improvement through consistently cleaner parts and analytical verification of process tool chamber part cleaning effectiveness, we have expanded our total available market significantly.

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Develop or acquire solutions that allow our customers to succeed at the leading edge of the semiconductor processing nodes. We continue to expand the number and type of subsystems and services that we offer in the rapidly advancing semiconductor market.

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Leverage our geographic presence in lower-cost manufacturing regions. The diverse footprint of our manufacturing facilities allows us to provide cost competitive solutions. These facilities house subsystem assembly, weldment and thermal control heater operations and are near the manufacturing facilities of existing and potential customers and their end users. In Singapore, we have a procurement office and substantial manufacturing capabilities. Many of our manufacturing facilities use similar processes and procedures, enabling us to respond rapidly to demand changes from our customers. Several of UCT’s facilities are also in low-cost regions, strategically close to our customers, adding to our competitive advantage.

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Provide production flexibility to respond rapidly to demand changes. Many of our manufacturing facilities use similar processes and procedures enabling us to easily shift production between sites to support expanded demand and ensure business continuity.

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Drive profitable growth with our flexible cost structure. We implement cost containment and capacity enhancement initiatives throughout the semiconductor demand cycles and benefit from the global presence and efficiencies of our supply chain. In addition, we believe our overseas facilities position us to respond effectively to future business demands. We employ a core engineering strategy with flexible partnering to augment our staff during the demand cycles within the semiconductor industry.

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Continue to selectively pursue strategic acquisitions. We will continue to consider strategic acquisitions that enable us to improve our financial model, expand our geographic presence, secure new customers and diversify into complementary products and services markets as well as broaden our technological and cleaning and analytical capabilities in the markets we serve.

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Strengthen vertical integration. We continue to strengthen our vertically integrated business model by investing in our operations or acquiring companies along the semiconductor supply chain to increase our capabilities, improve our cost structure, and enhance control, efficiency, and quality across our global operations. By deepening our integration capabilities, we aim to streamline processes, reduce dependencies, and fortify our position as a leading solutions and service provider in the semiconductor ecosystem.

Products

We design, develop, prototype, manufacture and test subsystems, primarily for the semiconductor equipment market. Our products include precision robotic solutions, gas delivery systems, sub-fab process equipment support racks, a variety of industrial and automation production equipment products, and subsystems that include wafer cleaning modules, chemical delivery modules, top-plate assemblies, frame assemblies, and process modules. We also offer a wide range of parts and components such as ultra-clean valves, high purity connectors, industrial process connectors and valves, pneumatic actuators, manifolds and safety solutions, hoses, gas delivery systems, and pressure gauges.

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Parts and components. Includes ultra-clean valves, high purity connectors, industrial process connectors and valves, pneumatic actuators, manifolds and safety solutions, hoses, pressure gauges, gas line and component heaters, as well as complex weldments. These products comply with the highest quality standards to ensure accelerated performance in a variety of demanding environments and applications in the semiconductor and other gas manufacturing markets.

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Chemical delivery modules: Chemical delivery modules deliver gases and reactive chemicals in a liquid or gaseous form from a centralized subsystem to the reaction chamber. The module may be a gas delivery system in combination with liquid and vapor precursor delivery systems or may be a liquid delivery system in combination with a liquid storage system.

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Gas delivery systems: A typical OEM gas delivery system consists of one or more gas lines, comprised of weldments, filters, mass flow controllers, regulators, pressure transducers and valves, component heaters, and an integrated electronic and/or pneumatic control system. These systems are typically pallet mounted and are enclosed in a sheet metal encasing. Our gas delivery system designs are developed in collaboration with our customers and are customized to meet the needs of specific processing requirements for OEMs. While several customers specify the full system bill of materials, many leverage our design expertise to help them select the appropriate components for their particular system.

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Fluid delivery system: A typical OEM liquid delivery system consists of one or more chemical delivery units, comprised of small diameter high purity PFA tubing, filters, flow controllers, regulators, component heaters, and an integrated electronic and/or pneumatic control system. These units are typically contained in a plastic enclosure and further integrated into a frame. Our liquid delivery system designs are developed in collaboration with our customers and are customized to meet the needs of specific processing requirements for OEMs. Although several customers specify the full system bill of materials, many rely on our design expertise and component characterization capabilities to help them select the appropriate components for their particular system.

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Precision robotics: Precision robotic systems are used when accurate controlled motion is required. Some of the systems that employ robotic systems are semiconductor wafer and chip handling, wire bonding and industrial equipment.

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Process modules: Process modules refer to the larger subsystems of semiconductor manufacturing tools that process integrated circuits onto wafers. Process modules include several smaller subsystems such as the frame assembly, top-plate assembly and gas and chemical delivery modules, as well as the chamber and electronic, pneumatic and mechanical subsystems.

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Other high-level assemblies: Other high-level assemblies refer to large subsystems used in semiconductor manufacturing and sub-fab, display, medical, energy, industrial and research industries.

Services

Our services business includes ultra-high purity process tool chamber parts cleaning and coating services, tool part life extension and process tool part optimization solutions, and micro-contamination analytical testing, primarily for the semiconductor device manufacturers and wafer fabrication equipment markets.

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Parts cleaning and coating: UCT offers customers validated, ultra-high purity outsourced process tool chamber parts cleaning and coating services. Included in these services are tool part process optimization solutions that can lower the total cost of ownership for our customers.

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Micro-contamination analysis: UCT also offers micro-contamination analysis of tool parts, wafers and depositions, chemicals, cleanroom materials, deionized water and airborne molecular contamination and provides analytical verification of process tool chamber part cleaning effectiveness.

Customers

We sell our products and services primarily to customers in the semiconductor capital equipment and semiconductor integrated device manufacturing industries, and we also sell to the display, consumer, medical, energy, industrial, and research equipment industries.

The majority of our total revenue comes from the highly concentrated semiconductor capital equipment industry (OEM customers), so we are dependent upon a small number of customers. Our two largest revenue customers in fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021 were Applied Materials, Inc. and Lam Research Corporation, each of which accounted for more than 10% of our total revenues in those three years. As a group, our respective year’s top two customers accounted for 57.4%, 62.7% and 64.0% of the Company’s revenues for fiscal years 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively.

Approximately 93.2% of our total revenues for the fiscal year 2023 came from multiple segments of the semiconductor industry, which include IDM, Foundry, OEM, and sub-tier suppliers.

We have successfully been qualified as a supplier of equipment, cleaning, coating and analytical services with each of our customers who require such qualifications. This lengthy qualification process typically involves the inspection and audit of our facilities and evaluation by our customers of our engineering, documentation, manufacturing and quality control processes and procedures. Our customers generally place orders with suppliers who meet their qualification criteria.

Customer Business Management

We sell and support our products and services through our Customer Business Management organization. Our customer relationship directors are responsible for establishing sales strategies and setting the objectives for specific customer accounts. Each customer relationship manager is dedicated to a specific customer account and is responsible for maintaining strong working relationships with that customer, and in many cases provide on-site support. OEM Customer relationship managers often attend customers’ internal meetings related to production and engineering design and quality to ensure that customer expectations are interpreted and communicated properly to the operations group. Customer relationship managers also work with customers to identify and meet their cost and design-to-delivery cycle time objectives. IDM Customer relationship managers work with process tool owners and Fab maintenance managers relating to the development and validation of cleaning recipes, addressing new tools cleaning and analytical requirements, and optimizing cleaning processes and analytical testing requirements to support node transitions.

We have dedicated New Business Development managers for both our product and service businesses. They are responsible for initiating and developing long-term, multi-level relationships and work closely with the customers on new business opportunities. Our Customer Business Management organization includes technical sales support for order placement, spare parts quotes, production status updates as well as service and maintenance contracts and analysis business. We have technical relationship representatives located at most of our facilities.

We integrate new business wins into our facilities via a rigorous product transition process, working in concert with our customers to ensure all production, cleaning and/or test requirements are identified, documented, and validated. We employ the same process at all our sites, enabling products and service offerings to smoothly transition between our facilities as needed to support customer demand.

In addition, we have developed an overall infrastructure to provide our customers with service and support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our dedicated global field service engineers provide customer support through the performance of on-site installation, servicing and repair.

Technology Development

We engage in ongoing technology development efforts to remain a leader for gas delivery systems and to further develop our expertise in other critical subsystems. We work closely with our customers to identify and anticipate changes and trends in next-generation equipment and partner with them on process application requirements for gas and liquid delivery systems and other critical subsystems. These development efforts are designed to meet specific customer requirements in the areas of subsystem design, materials, component selection and functionality. Our technology development group also works directly with our suppliers to help them identify new component technologies and make necessary changes or enhancements to, the components that we integrate into our products. Our analytical and testing capabilities enable us to evaluate multiple supplier component technologies and provide our customers with a wide range of appropriate component and design choices for their gas delivery systems and other critical subsystems.

Our analytical and testing capabilities also help us anticipate technological changes and requirements in component features for our core next-generation gas delivery systems and other critical subsystems. We are continuously developing additional features to improve the performance and functionality of these subsystems. Our technology development activities for next-generation gas delivery and other critical subsystems are performed in Hayward, CA and Israel.

We are actively developing new technology and processes to maintain our leadership in the cleaning, coating and analytical markets. Our Services business works closely with customers to identify and anticipate changes that will be required in next-generation equipment. UCT’s technical capability is extremely critical and differentiated to ensure high wafer yields and throughput as geometries shrink and density increases. Our Services business development activities are performed primarily in Hillsboro, Oregon; Phoenix, Arizona; Israel and South Korea.

Intellectual Property

Our success depends in part on our ability to maintain and protect our proprietary technology and to conduct our business without infringing the proprietary rights of others. Both our products and services businesses largely depend upon our design, engineering, manufacturing, testing, cleaning, coating and analytical know-how. We also rely on a combination of trade secrets and confidentiality provisions, and to a lesser extent, patents, copyrights and trademarks, to protect our proprietary rights. We have over 100 patents with various expiration dates, and intellectual property that we develop on behalf of our customers that is generally owned exclusively by those customers.

We require our employees, suppliers, customers and potential business partners to enter into confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements before we disclose to them any sensitive or proprietary information regarding our products, technology or business plans. We require employees to assign to us proprietary information, inventions and other intellectual property they create, modify or improve.

Competition

When we compete for new business, it is typically against other suppliers of gas delivery systems, critical subsystems, parts and components, cleaning and analytical services, as well as the internal manufacturing and services groups of our customers. Customers that have elected to outsource their gas delivery systems and other critical subsystems including cleaning and analytics, could elect in the future to develop and manufacture these subsystems internally, leading to further competition.

Our principal competitor for gas delivery systems is Ichor Systems, Inc., and our principal competitors for other critical subsystems are Flex Ltd., Foxsemicon Integrated Technology Inc., Jabil, Inc., Sanmina Corporation, Fujikin Incorporated, VDL ETG and Celestica Inc. For our gas delivery component solutions our principal competitors are Swagelok, Parker Hannifin, and Watlow. For our services, cleaning and coating offerings, our main competitors in the US are Pentagon Technologies and Cleanpart, and in South Korea, KoMiCo. For analytical services our primary competitors are Balazs (an Air Liquide company) and Cerium Labs. Some of these competitors have substantially greater financial, technical, manufacturing and marketing resources than UCT. We expect our competitors to continue to improve the performance of their current products and to introduce new products or new technologies that could adversely affect sales of our current and future products.

The limited number of potential customers in our industry further intensifies competition. The primary competitive factors in our industry are quality, meeting customer timeline requirements, price, technology, design-to-delivery cycle time, customer qualification approvals, and the development of product recipes for cleaning and analytics and historical customer relationships. We anticipate that increased competitive pressures will cause intensified price-based competition and we may have to reduce the prices of our products. In addition, we expect to face new competitors as we enter new markets or otherwise expand our products and service offerings.

Governmental Regulation and Environmental Matters

Our operations are subject to federal, state and local regulatory requirements and foreign laws relating to environmental, waste management and health and safety matters, including measures relating to the release, use, storage, treatment, transportation, discharge, disposal and remediation of contaminants, hazardous substances and waste, as well as practices and procedures applicable to the construction and operation of our UCT facilities.

In 2020, we committed to a program titled “SuCCESS2030” designed to enhance our sustainability vision through our supply chain. We are endeavoring to identify and coordinate efforts and develop our capabilities to ensure our suppliers operate in an ethical, responsible, and sustainable manner. The goal is to build a responsible and sustainable end-to-end supply chain for the future of semiconductors.

We participate in the Responsible Business Alliance’s Responsible Minerals Assurance Process for Tantalum. Our cleaning processes for tantalum-deposited parts recovers the tantalum, enabling it to re-enter the commodity market and reduce the demand for mined material, the majority of which originates from the Conflict Region in Africa.

Although cleaning is a chemical-intensive business we utilize chemical-free processing whenever possible to remove significant volumes of deposited material. Reduction in the volume of film being chemically removed reduces the amount of chemicals used to meet the target cleanliness specifications.

The semiconductor industry has stringent packaging requirements which include the need to maintain the cleanliness of a part/system while providing structural support of heavy modules. These requirements may necessitate the design and fabrication of product-specific crates or the use of plastic cleanroom boxes. To minimize packaging waste we have implemented re-use programs with our customers and suppliers for these type of materials.

Our past or future operations may result in injury or claims of injury by employees or the public which may result in material costs and liabilities. Although some risk of costs and liabilities related to these matters is inherent in our business, we believe that our business is compliant with applicable U.S. and international regulations and laws. However, new, modified or more stringent requirements or enforcement policies could be adopted by governmental agencies, which could affect our business operations.

Employees and Human Capital

As of December 29, 2023, we had 6,657 employees, of which 527 were temporary. Of our total employees, there were 124 in engineering, 21 in technology development, 386 in sales and support, 4,252 in direct manufacturing, 1,221 in indirect manufacturing and 653 in administrative and executive functions. These figures include 2,993 employees in Asia Pacific and 1,535 employees in EMEA. None of our employees are represented by a labor union and we have not experienced any work stoppages.

UCT believes that its employees are its most important assets. The Company has a long history of embracing diversity, multiculturalism and belonging and is reinforcing a culture of inclusion by committing to even greater transparency, clearer targets and comprehensive training to improve diversity and inclusion within the company to ensure every employee is treated with dignity and respect. The goal is to foster an atmosphere of acceptance, inclusion, trust and of mutual respect for all. To reach that goal, UCT provides mandatory practical and continuous education to all employees on behavioral expectations.

We believe that UCT’s success depends on our ability to attract, develop and retain key personnel. We believe that the skills, experience and industry knowledge of our key employees significantly benefit our operations and performance. The Company strives to provide fair and equal opportunity for career development and advancement to all its employees. UCT offers competitive rewards, compensation and benefits, including an Employee Stock Purchase Plan, healthcare and retirement benefits, parental and family leave, adoption credits, holiday and paid time off, and tuition assistance.

UCT uses its annual operating plan and industry growth projections to determine the appropriate level of staffing requirements. Staffing levels are aligned and adjusted on occasion throughout the year to ensure UCT meets its customer obligations, in line with any changes in demand, to ensure business continuity.

Social Responsibility

UCT believes that social responsibility is defined as “positively impacting society by ensuring the people we work with are safe and treated with dignity and respect, and by being a good neighbor in the communities in which we operate”. UCT applies its core values to employee engagement inside and outside the Company. Positively involving employees and giving back to communities is central to UCT’s culture. Supported by the Company, UCT employees contribute directly to the community with their time and resources. In 2023, UCT organized and conducted 31 events designed to give back and support its communities.

Available Information

We file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. You may read and copy any materials we file with the SEC at the Public Reference Room maintained by the SEC at 100 F Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. 20549. You may also request copies of all or any portion of such material from the SEC at prescribed rates. Please call the SEC at 1-800-SEC-0330 for further information on the operation of the public reference room. In addition, materials filed electronically with the SEC are available at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

In addition, we make available free of charge, on or through our website at www.uct.com, our annual, quarterly and current reports and any amendments to those reports, as soon as reasonably practicable after electronically filing such reports with, or furnishing them to, the SEC. This website address is intended to be an inactive textual reference only; none of the information contained on our website is part of this report or is incorporated by reference herein.

Executive Officers

Set forth below is information concerning our executive officers as of March 6, 2024.

James P. Scholhamer joined the Company as Chief Executive Officer and a member of our Board of Directors in January 2015. Prior to joining Ultra Clean, Mr. Scholhamer served as Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Applied Materials, Inc., leading the Equipment Products Group and Display Services Group of its Global Service Division from February 2011 to January 2015. Mr. Scholhamer joined Applied Materials, Inc. in 2006, where, prior to his most recent position, he served as Vice President of Operations Display and Solar Products Division from July 2006 to December 2008 and Corporate Vice President and General Manager of the Display Business Group from December 2008 to February 2011. Prior to that, Mr. Scholhamer worked for Applied Films Corporation as COO/CTO and Vice President of Operations, Engineering and Research Development in the company’s German office from September 2002 to July 2006 and as Vice President of Thin Film Coating Division and Thin Film Equipment Division in the company’s Colorado office from July 2000 to September 2002. Mr. Scholhamer holds a B.S. in Materials and Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Michigan.

Sheri Savage has served as our Chief Financial Officer since July 2016. Ms. Savage joined the Company as the Senior Director of Finance in April 2009. She was Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Accounting Officer from February 2016 to July 2016. Prior to joining the Company, Ms. Savage served at Credence Systems Corporation, a manufacturer of test equipment for the global semiconductor industry, as its Corporate Controller and Vice President of Finance from February 2008 to February 2009 and as Director of Internal Audit from May 2006 to February 2008. Prior to Credence Systems, Ms. Savage served in various accounting and finance roles at Protiviti, a global business consulting and internal audit firm, and KLA-Tencor Corporation, a supplier of process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related nanoelectronics industries. Ms. Savage also served as Manager, Business Process Risk Accounting, at Arthur Anderson LLP, the former accounting firm, from May 1996 to October 1999. Ms. Savage holds a B.S. in Managerial Economics from the University of California, Davis.

Jeff McKibben has served as our Chief Information Officer since August 2021. Prior to joining UCT, Mr. McKibben served at ON Semiconductor Corporation, a $6 billion global manufacturer driving innovation in energy efficient electronics, as Chief Information Officer from December 2020 to August 2021, as Vice President, Enterprise Applications from August 2017 to December 2020 and as Senior Director, Enterprise Applications from July 2007 to August 2017. He previously held a range of roles at Hewlett Packard in global IT management, consulting, and enterprise program management. Mr. McKibben holds an M.S. in Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona and a B.S. in Humanities and International Relations cum laude from Georgetown University.

Chris Cook has served as our President, Products Business since April 2022. Before joining UCT, Mr. Cook served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Cypress Semiconductor from March 2017 to April 2020 when the company was acquired for $10 billion by Infineon Technologies AG. Mr. Cook served as Founder, CEO and Adviser at Cauz Colony from June 2015 to December 2018. Prior to that, he served as President of Flex Power, the power supply business of Flextronics International Ltd. from January 2012 to June 2015. Mr. Cook joined Infineon Technologies AG in 2003 and served as its Vice President and General Manager, RF and Protection Devices from May 2008 to December 2011, its Managing Director, Infineon Technologies North America from July 2007 to December 2008 and Vice President and General Manager, AI Marketing from May 2003 to May 2008. He previously held various roles of increasing responsibility at Renesas Technology (formerly Hitachi Semiconductor) from 1995 to 2003. Mr. Cook holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Technology from Purdue University and completed the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.

William C. Bentinck has served as our President, Semiconductor Services Business since May 2019. Mr. Bentinck joined the Company as Senior Vice President, Semiconductor Services Business, in March 2019. Mr. Bentinck previously served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Eugenus, Inc., a semiconductor equipment manufacturing company, from November 2017 to June 2018. Prior to that, Mr. Bentinck served as Vice President and General Manager of the Logic & Memories Technology Group for AIXTRON Inc., a manufacturer of systems and equipment to the semiconductor industry, from April 2014 to November 2017. From August 2006 to March 2014, Mr. Bentinck served as General Manager, Customer Support Business Group (Spares & Services) for Lam Research Corporation, a global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry. Prior to Lam Research Corporation, Mr. Bentinck served in various roles of increasing responsibility at Novellus Systems, Inc., a provider of advanced process equipment for the global semiconductor industry, from 1991 through August 2006. Mr. Bentinck holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, and a M.S. in Engineering – Material Science, from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Brian E. Harding has served as our Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer since June 2022. Prior to joining UCT, Mr. Harding served as Vice President and Corporate Controller at The Greenbrier Companies from March 2020 to June 2022. Prior to that, Mr. Harding served as Vice President, Corporate Controller and Principal Accounting Officer from May 2016 to March 2020 and as Director of Finance and Accounting from May 2014 to May 2016 at FLIR Systems, Inc. (now part of Teledyne Technologies). He previously served in various roles of increasing responsibility at KPMG LLP and its international partner firms from October 2003 to May 2014. Mr. Harding holds a B.A. in Business Administration with concentrations in Accounting and Finance from Pacific University and completed the Executive Leadership and Innovation Program at the Babson Graduate School of Business.

Jamie J. Palfrey has served as our Senior Vice President of Global Human Resources since May 2021. Prior to joining UCT, Ms. Palfrey served as Senior Vice President, Global Human Resources for Shape Technologies Group, a global leader in the manufacturing process solutions industry with operations in 33 countries worldwide, from December 2015 to April 2020. Previously, she held the role of Vice President, Human Resources with Wacom Americas from October 2013 to December 2015, and from 1995 to 2013 served in various senior management roles in organizations that include FEI Company, Lam Research Corporation and ConocoPhillips. Ms. Palfrey holds an M.Ed. with a focus on Human Resources, Occupational Training & Development/instructional design, from University of Louisville and a B.S. in Business Administration from Portland State University.

Paul Y. Cho has served as our General Counsel and Corporate Secretary since October 2019. Mr. Cho brings over a decade of experience in various legal disciplines, including IP and commercial litigation, joint venture projects, and commercial transaction work. Most recently, from April 2016 to October 2019, Mr. Cho held the position of General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for the North American operations of the world’s second largest memory chip supplier, SK Hynix, Inc., and held the position of Senior Counsel at its corporate headquarters from September 2014 to March 2016. Prior to SK Hynix Inc., Mr. Cho served as Senior Legal Counsel for Samsung SDI, a storage battery manufacturing company, from June 2013 to September 2014 and as Legal Counsel for LG Electronics, an electronics company, from April 2012 to May 2013. Mr. Cho holds a B.A. in English from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School.