Texas Instruments Expands Its RFID Management Team

DALLAS, April 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Texas Instruments Incorporated , a worldwide leader in radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, announced the expansion of its RFID management team with the addition of three new director positions. The company has named Shawn A. Rogers, director of Wireless Commerce and Tag-it(TM) products; Mikael Ahlund, director of RFID Healthcare, and William A. Santini, director of technology development. TI's RFID division is expanding its upper management team as it prepares to launch its Electronic Product Code(TM) (EPC) Generation 2 UHF product line for retail and supply chain applications, and grow its RFID business in these emerging markets.

"Shawn, Mikael and Bill have deep functional expertise and track records of growing strategic businesses, making them uniquely qualified for their new roles as TI moves aggressively to offer a range of high frequency and ultra- high frequency RFID products to customers in these new markets," said Julie England, vice president of Texas Instruments and general manager of Texas Instruments RFid Systems.

Shawn A. Rogers

Shawn Rogers is responsible for directing Texas Instruments RFid Systems' high frequency RFID initiatives in markets such as contactless payment, laundry and library systems, and drives the strategy and development efforts for TI's Tag-it(TM) high frequency product line. With more than 22 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, Shawn has held management positions in marketing, product development and engineering in a variety of businesses, predominantly developing communications products.

He is a founding member and chief technical editor of the High Speed Backplane Initiative (HSBI) and a founding member of the Reduced Gigabit Media Independent Interface (RGMII) Consortium. Since 1999, Shawn has been a contributing member of the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Standards group, which defined the 10Gbps Ethernet industry standard.

Shawn earned a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University, a Master's of electrical engineering from Rice University, and an M.B.A. from Houston Baptist University.

Mikael Ahlund

Mikael is director of RFID healthcare at Texas Instruments RFID Systems and is responsible for business strategy and development, as well as the marketing of TI's RFID products for applications within the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Mikael has more than 13 years of experience in the high-tech field, including roles in high-tech marketing management, product management and development, global business management, strategic planning, corporate turn-arounds and start-ups.

Mikael began his career as a business analyst and planning manager at General Electric (GE), and in his 17 years at the company also served as marketing and product development manager and general manager of GE Medical's ultrasound business. As vice president of marketing, Mikael played a key role at both IBAX/HBOC and Delphi, and followed with top-level marketing positions at STC/SeeBeyond and Viewlocity. Most recently, Mikael was a management and marketing consultant to medical equipment manufacturers.

Mikael earned his M.B.A. from the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden, and a Ph.D. in business administration and marketing from the University of Georgia.

William A. Santini

William (Bill) Santini is director of technology development for TI's RFID products, responsible for leading the engineering and development of new RFID high-frequency (HF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF) products. Bill brings more than 25 years of engineering program management to his new role in various engineering fields for both silicon-based and systems products.

Prior to this position, he was director of development for DSL Client Premise Equipment in the Broadband Communications Group at Texas Instruments. In the past two years, Bill led his team to achieve a number one position in market leadership with more than one million units shipped per month and an increase in revenues of more than 300 percent. Before joining Texas Instruments, Bill was vice president of engineering at Interphase Corporation and EXFO (formerly Gnubi Communication, L.P.) both of Dallas, Texas.

Bill earned a B.S. degree in electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics from Pennsylvania State University.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments is the world's largest integrated manufacturer of radio frequency identification (RFID) transponders and reader systems. Capitalizing on its competencies in high-volume semiconductor manufacturing and microelectronics packaging, TI is a visionary leader and at the forefront of establishing new markets and international standards for RFID applications. For more information, contact TI-RFid Systems at 1-888-937-6536 (North America) or +1 972-575-4364 (International), or visit the Web site at http://www.ti-rfid.com/ .

Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company's businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries. Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at http://www.ti.com/ .