Chinese chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International said Friday that its CEO, David Wang, has resigned from the company, a few weeks after being booted from its board of directors in a shareholder vote.
SMIC is the world's fourth-largest contract chip maker, behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) and GlobalFoundries.
SMIC is looking for candidates to fill the CEO position, it said in a statement. It named Zhang Wenyi as acting CEO.
Zhang was also made SMIC's chairman on Friday. Its former chairman, Jiang Shang Zhou, died last month.
SMIC halted trading of its stock after shareholders voted Wang off the board on June 29. It resumed trading Friday.
Wang became SMIC's CEO in November 2009 and led the company to profitability. Nevertheless, there were concerns about the company's performance under his watch. SMIC has struggled to keep up with manufacturing technologies used by some of its competitors.
Recent management shakeups have hit other foundry companies too. Doug Grose resigned as CEO of GlobalFoundries in May and was replaced by Ajit Manocha, a former vice president at memory chip company Spansion.
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