China, Nov. 5, 2009 (PRNewswire-Asia) -- Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq: ACTS), one of China's leading fabless semiconductor companies that provides comprehensive mixed-signal system-on-a-chip (SoC) and multimedia digital signal processing (DSP) solutions for portable consumer electronics, today announced that Niccolo Chen, Chief Strategy Officer and General Manager, has been promoted to the position of Chief Executive Officer as Nan-Horng Yeh steps down from this position to pursue personal interests. Mr. Yeh will remain a board member. Additionally, the Board appointed Robin Pan as an independent director.

"We are pleased to promote Niccolo to the position of Chief Executive Officer and I am personally highly confident with his selection as my successor," stated Mr. Nan-Horng Yeh, former CEO of Actions Semiconductor. "Niccolo has been instrumental in the rapid expansion of research and development resources and in driving technological innovation at Actions. We believe that his exceptional knowledge of semiconductor technologies and tenure in the IC business will prove extremely useful for leading Actions through the next phase of growth. Chen has consistently demonstrated an ability to execute and foster success throughout his career and we look forward to the contributions he will make in his expanded role at Actions."

Chen joined Actions in 2007 as General Manager and was promoted to Chief Strategy Officer earlier this year. In this capacity, Chen has spearheaded the successful development and market penetration of Actions' second generation SoCs and is leading the innovation of third generation SoCs. Prior to working at Actions, Chen held a number of technical positions at Realtek Semiconductor Corp. from 1992 through 2006, recently serving as Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Realtek's China subsidiary, Realsil. As CTO at Realtek, Chen developed a number of industry leading technologies that were instrumental in creating the foundation for Realtek's success, including the networking transceiver IC, PC audio IC, Wi-Fi SoC and TV/Monitor SoC. Prior to that, Chen worked as the engineer of process technology development department at UMC. Chen received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University.

Nan-Horng Yeh is stepping down from the Chief Executive Officer position to pursue personal interests and will maintain his role as director on the board.