Patriot Scientific of Carlsbad, Calif., announced the appointment of semiconductor chip industry veteran Rick Goerner as its interim president and CEO, effective immediately. Goerner succeeds Jim Turley, who resigned effective Feb. 28. "Rick has solid operating experience in the semiconductor industry with companies like Phillips, Silicon Systems, TDK (Japan) and Texas Instruments. He has been involved in the integration of acquisitions, including both chip and software companies, from both sides. The board is confident that Rick's knowledge, experience and enthusiasm will help guide Patriot through the current management transition and move our company forward," said Executive Committee Chairman Carlton Johnson. Goerner served as president and COO of the Storage Products Group of Texas Instruments and as president and CEO of the startup company TransDimension Inc., an Irvine, Calif.-based provider of embedded Universal Serial Bus (USB) silicon and software products that was acquired by Oxford Semiconductor in 2005. Goerner has recently been involved in the development of other early stage technology companies, serving as technical advisor, executive chairman, board member and interim president and CEO. Patriot Scientific licenses intellectual property used to develop technologies for wireless devices, smart cards, home appliances, network gateways, set-top boxes, entertainment technology, automotive telematics, biomedical devices and industrial controllers.