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 A mere two days after announcing the resignation of CEO Bertrand Cambou, flash memory chipmaker Spansion Inc. [SPSN] today announced his replacement: John Kispert (pictured), the former president and chief operating officer of chip equipment maker KLA-Tencor Corp. [KLAC] Struggling Spansion put itself on the block in January when it announced the hiring of Barclays Capital to help it look into strategic alternatives. It's hard to tell what Kispert's appointment means to this process. An interim chief would have been a pretty clear signal that the chipmaker was headed for a sale, but a relatively high-profile choice like Kispert might mean something else. Kispert, who will also join Spansion's board, last summer announced his intentions to depart KLA-Tencor by the end of 2008. The company said Kispert would "intensify Spansion's strategic and restructuring initiatives to build value for the company's stakeholders, leveraging the company's leadership in the Flash memory industry." Standard press release nonsense, to be sure, but it's hard to imagine someone taking a big job like this with a sale on the horizon. Regardless of who is at Spansion's helm, the company's got some dark clouds looming. Last month it said it would delay interest payments on some senior notes, which struck an ominous note with some analysts. "If Spansion could not pay these notes by the end of the cure period the company would be forced to file for bankruptcy," wrote Jim Handy, an analyst with semiconductor industry research firm Objective Analysis, in a note today. "We are halfway through the cure period." Oversupply in the flash memory industry is making it tough to predict Spansion's future, but an outright liquidation is unlikely, Handy said, and its intellectual property is a very attractive asset. Now rumors are circulating that memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc. [MU] is mulling a run at Spansion. We'll have to wait and see what Kispert has in store. -- Olaf de Senerpont Domis See Feb. 4 press release from Spansion See Feb. 4 story on Micron-Spansion rumors from EETimes See Feb. 2 post on Cambou's resignation from Tech Confidential
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