Transphorm Announces Appointment of Company Co-founders as Chief Executive Officer and Board Chair

Follows Retirement of CEO and as part of the Company’s Planned Succession Strategy

Transphorm, Inc. (NASDAQ: TGAN)—a pioneer in and global supplier of high-reliability, high-performance gallium nitride (GaN) power conversion products, announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Dr. Primit Parikh as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company and as a member of the Board. The Board also appointed Dr. Umesh Mishra to serve as Chair of the Board. Both of these appointments are effective May 15, 2023.

Dr. Parikh and Dr. Mishra, who co-founded the Company’s main operating subsidiary Transphorm Technology Inc., succeed Mario Rivas, who has served as the Company’s Chief Executive Officer since February 2020 and Chair of the Board since May 2022 and, as Transphorm Technology’s Chief Executive Officer since October 2015. Mr. Rivas’s retirement is part of the Company’s management succession planning. Mr. Rivas will enter into a consulting agreement to provide advisory services to the Company through May 15, 2024.

Dr. Parikh has served as the Company’s President and Chief Operating Officer since February 2020. He is a co-founder of Transphorm Technology and has served as Transphorm Technology’s Chief Operating Officer since 2007, as well as a member of the board of directors of Transphorm Japan, Inc. since 2014. With over 25 years of semiconductor and entrepreneurial experience, his background includes experience with capital raises, international markets and strategic partnerships, products and manufacturing, intellectual property, GaN and semiconductor technology, and government contracting.

“We are very pleased to have Primit and Umesh take over the leadership of Transphorm following my retirement,” said Mario Rivas, Transphorm’s former CEO and Chairman. “We are confident that with their leadership the Company will continue to be a leader in the growing GaN semiconductor space.”

“We are honored to continue to lead the phenomenal Transphorm team in what is a very exciting time for GaN power electronics and Transphorm, with its high reliability – high performance normally off GaN products, that offer fundamentally superior performance to typical competing GaN solutions and cover the widest power spectrum in GaN power today. We thank Mario for his mentorship, all-round contributions, and dedication to the Company, and appreciate his continued involvement in an advisory capacity,” commented Dr. Parikh and Dr. Mishra.

About Transphorm

Transphorm, Inc., a global leader in the GaN revolution, designs and manufactures high performance and high reliability GaN semiconductors for high voltage power conversion applications. Having one of the largest Power GaN IP portfolios of more than 1,000 owned or licensed patents, Transphorm produces the industry’s first JEDEC and AEC-Q101 qualified high voltage GaN semiconductor devices. The Company’s vertically integrated device business model allows for innovation at every development stage: design, fabrication, device, and application support. Transphorm’s innovations move power electronics beyond the limitations of silicon to achieve over 99% efficiency, 50% more power density and 20% lower system cost. Transphorm is headquartered in Goleta, California and has manufacturing operations in Goleta and Aizu, Japan. For more information, please visit www.transphormusa.com. Follow us on Twitter @transphormusa and WeChat @ Transphorm_GaN.

4. Company estimates for US (and WW) power conversion applications that GaN can penetrate and enable efficiency (electricity) savings, and enabled associated environmental impact. EPA 2021 estimate of 432 kg CO₂ resulting for one 42G barrel and estimates for global CO₂ emissions from coal-fired plants. Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-co2-emissions-in-2021-2.

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