Morse, who is currently finance chief at chipmaker Altera Corp., will begin work at Yahoo on June 17 and take the CFO role on July 1, the Sunnyvale, California-based company said today in a statement. He succeeds Blake Jorgensen, who plans to join Levi Strauss & Co. as its finance chief on July 1. The company will recommend that he get 400,000 stock options and 150,000 restricted stock units. He also will be awarded a $500,000 hiring bonus to compensate for the loss of benefits from Altera. Jorgensen, who joined Yahoo in 2007, had a salary of $487,500. Between 2006 and 2008, Altera’s revenue increased 6 percent. At the same time, operating expenses dropped almost 8 percent. (Selling, general and administrative expenses took an especially hard hit. They dropped almost 17 percent.) In a report this morning, Barclays Capital Analyst Douglas Anmuth also says that under Morse, Altera’s operating margins increased from 23 percent in the first quarter of 2007 to 31 percent in the second quarter of 2008 “before being negatively impacted by macro & mix.” (Morse’s cost cutting initiatives never resulted in mass layoffs at the company; the Associated Press reports that Altera’s workforce actually grew during Morse’s tenure, although Altera did lay off 33 employees in March.)