Regional and Chapter News
USA, Canada and Latin America (Regions 1-6, 7 & 9)
ED Washington/Northern Virginia
- by Michael Hurt
The Washington/Northern Virginia Chapter of the Electron Devices
Society held the first two meetings of its Fall Lecture Series
on the topic "Nanotechnology and its Applications."
On September 4, Dr. Cliff Lau, from the Office of Secretary of
Defense and President-Elect of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council,
gave a presentation entitled "Nanotechnology - An Overview."
Dr. Lau defined nanotechnology as the research and technical development
of structures, devices, materials, etc., in the 1 - 100 nm range.
He provided a glimpse of the various nanotechnology developments
taking place at research centers, government agencies, and multidisciplinary
university research initiatives. Dr. Lau predicted that microelectronics
and nanotechnology will continue to follow concurrent paths of
revolution (molecular electronics, spintronics, quantum dots)
and evolution (manufacturing, characterization techniques). He
concluded with the statements that nanotechnology is here to stay,
investment in nanotechnology continues to increase, the investment
and research is leading to commercial products, and that nanotechnology
is the frontier for the next industrial revolution.
Dr. Kwan Kwok gave a presentation on the topic of "Nanodevices
and Nanoelectronics" on October 2. He pointed out the rapid
breakthroughs by referencing quotes from 1992-1997 stating the
molecular electronics were "impossible," while just
a few years later in 2001 nanotechnology was deemed the "breakthrough
of the year." Dr. Kwok, from the MTO at DARPA, reviewed DARPA
programs on Moleapps and Moletronics. A goal of the Moleapps program
is to produce an Intel 4004 grade chip on an area 10 um x 10 um.
The chip will have 1011 devices, be low power, and be integratable
with molecular memory. Another goal is to create a molecular sensor
that is as good as "nature's best nose." The roadmap
for Moleapps starts with moletronics nanomemory and branches into
processors and sensors, before recombining in moleprocessors and
systems before evolving into 2-D and eventually 3-D integration.
Dr. Kwok predicted that by 2023, there would be massively parallel
nanoprocessing at 1018-bit ops/sec. This may allow for a cerebromorphic
system encompassing a nanotechnology brain, nose, tongue, and
ears.
For more information, please see www.ewh.ieee.org/r2/no_virginia/eds/.
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Dr. Kwan Kwok at the ED Washington/N. Virginia Chapter Meeting |
AP/CPMT/MTT/ED Eastern North Carolina
- by Dev Palmer
The communications industry in eastern North Carolina has seen
dramatic growth in the technology and manufacturing areas that
feed electronic and radio communications. In response, the ACME
(AP/CPMT/MTT/ED) Chapter was formed in May 2003 to disseminate
technical information and advance the professional interests of
North Carolina scientists and engineers involved in research,
development, design, and manufacture of electromagnetic and optical
components and systems. The chapter comprises four IEEE societies
chosen for their relevance to electronic and radio communications
systems: EDS for the development of transistors and other electron
devices, MTT for microwave theory, circuits, and applications,
CPMT for reliable, high-performance packaging systems, and AP
for antennas and wave propagation between systems.
The ACME Chapter kickoff meeting was held on August 27th at the
MCNC Research and Development Institute in Research Triangle Park
NC. There were over 20 attendees representing six area companies,
the US Army Research Office, Duke University, and North Carolina
State University. At the meeting, Dr. Dev Palmer was elected Chair
and Dr. Brett Guenther was elected Vice-Chair. The ACME winter
meeting will be in late November, with technical talks on high-speed
and high-density electronic packaging by chapter members from
DuPont and Unitive Electronics. We welcome the participation of
all interested IEEE members from government, industry, and academia.
- Murty S. Polavarapu, Editor
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Professor Yuan Taur addressing the ED Santa Clara Valley Chapter. |
ED Santa Clara Valley
- by Prasad Chaparala
The ED Santa Clara Valley chapter held a technical seminar on
September 9, 2003 on the National Semiconductor's campus in Sunnyvale,
CA, with Professor Yuan Taur (University of California, San Diego)
as the guest speaker. In his talk "Challenges Near the Limit
of CMOS Scaling", Professor Taur addressed the issues, challenges
and limits of CMOS scaling technologies beyond 100 nm. He projected
that CMOS is likely to extend to 20-nm channel lengths, with the
gate oxide and power limiting further scaling.
Using robust first-order analytical modeling, Dr. Taur made a
comprehensive review of MOSFET scaling that included the classical
bulk structure as well as less conventional structures such as
partially- and fully-depleted SOI MOSFETs and double-gate MOSFETs.
Based on his original analytical design theory of double-gate
MOSFET, Dr. Taur projected that this device architecture could
in principle extend scaling to 10 nm, but with tremendous fabrication
challenges.
The opportunities offered by new materials such as high-K gate
dielectrics and high-mobility strained silicon were factored into
the scaling projections.
At the end of his talk, the speaker mentioned on-going research
on non-CMOS replacements such as single-electron transistors and
carbon nanotubes, concluding that there is "no credible candidate
at the horizon that shows the promise to replace CMOS ULSI".
The event was organized by the chapter's secretary Dr. Constantin
Bulucea, who introduced the speaker as "the coauthor of the
most convincing book on sub-micron devices" (Fundamentals
of Modern VLSI Devices, by Yuan Taur and Tak H. Ning, Cambridge
University Press, 1998). Having known the speaker from his distinguished
contributions to the field as well as from a previous IEEE talk,
the Santa Clara community filled the auditorium to its limits.
After-seminar discussions extended well into the evening.
The ED Santa Clara Valley Chapter holds technical seminars on
every second Tuesday of the month.
- Sunit Tyagi, Editor
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From left to right: Antonio Cerdeira, Magali Estrada del Cueto and Cor Claeys |
ED South Brazil
-by Jacobus W. Swart
The chapter organized a meeting in conjunction with the 18th Symposium
on Microelectronics Technology and Devices - SBMicro 2003, held
in São Paulo, Brazil, September 8 to 11, 2004. This symposium
was organized by two Brazilian scientific societies: SBMicro (Sociedade
Brasileira de Microeletrônica) and SBC (Sociedade Brasileira
de Computação), and was technically co-sponsored
by the IEEE Electron Devices Society. During this event, a chapter
meeting was held and four tutorial and invited seminars were given
by three distinguished lecturers from EDS: Antonio Cerdeira, from
CINVESTAV, Mexico: "The Integral Function Method to Determine
the Non-linear Harmonic Distortion"; Cor Claeys, from IMEC,
Belgium: "Submicron Silicon Technologies", and "Low
Temperature Electronics: From Fundamental Physics to Emerging
Silicon Technologies" and Magali Estrada del Cueto, also
from CINVESTAV, Mexico: "Dielectrics for Sub micrometric
Devices". These seminars were attended by over 50 people,
many of them members of the chapter, others from other regions
of Brazil and other countries of Latin America and some from the
USA and Europe. Besides giving the seminars, the distinguished
lecturers attended a chapters meeting and had many discussions
with the participants during the four days of the symposium. One
of the topics during the chapters meeting was about starting an
EDS student chapter at the University of Campinas. Students showed
great interest about this idea and will work on it afterwards.
2004 Symposium on Microelectronics Technology
and Devices & 2004 Symposium on Integrated Circuits and Systems
Design
-by Jacobus W. Swart
The 19th Symposium on Microelectronics Technology and Devices
will be held on September 7 to 11 in Porto de Galinhas, PE, Brazil.
This symposium is organized by two Brazilian scientific societies:
SBMicro (Sociedade Brasileira de Microeletrônica) and SBC
(Sociedade Brasileira de Computação), and is technically
co-sponsored by the IEEE Electron Devices Society. The SBMicro
symposium is a forum dedicated to fabrication and modeling of
microsystems, integrated circuits and devices, held annually in
Brazil. The goal of the symposium is to bring together researchers
in the areas of processing, materials, characterization, modeling
and TCAD of integrated circuits and MEMS. In conjunction with
the SBMicro 2004, an additional symposium is held at the same
place and time, namely the 17th Symposium on Integrated Circuits
and Systems Design. This symposium is also organized by the same
two local societies. The two symposia have been held together
since the year 2000, with a total attendance of about 300 participants
with presentation of about 100 regular papers, in addition to
invited and tutorial lectures. The two symposia together are named
by a fantasy name that changes in accordance to its location.
This year it has been named: Chip in Sampa (São Paulo,
2003). For next year it has received the name: "Chip on the
Reefs". The events in the previous years were named as: Chip
in the Pampa (Porto Alegre, 2002), Brasília 2001 (Pirenópolis,
2001) and Chip in the Jungle (Manaus, 2000). Since the year 2002,
The Electrochemical Society publishes the proceedings of the SBMicro
Symposia.
The symposia location is Porto de Galinhas, a wonderful beach
just 60 km south of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco state, Brazil.
This tropical paradise contains some of the most beautiful beaches
of Brazil, with warm green clean waters. When the low tide comes,
natural pools, protected by reefs, are formed.
This international conference offers a unique blend of microelectronics
and serves as a major conference for the discussion of interdisciplinary
research around the world.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: IC and MEMS
processing; novel materials and devices; reliability; technology
CAD; displays; thermal effects and models; nanoelectronics; device
characterization and modeling; sensors and actuators; package
and technology roadmaps; packaging; engineering education.
Important deadlines are as follows: Submission: April 19th, 2004;
Notification of Acceptance: June 1st, 2004; Camara-ready: June
21st, 2004. For more information, see http://www.sbmicro.org.br/sbmicro
and http://www.sbc.org.br/sbcci,
and or contact the program chair, Prof. Edval Santos: edval@ee.ufpe.br
ED Venezuela
-by Adelmo Ortiz-Conde
The next "IEEE International Caracas Conference on Devices,
Circuits and Systems" (ICCDCS) will be held in the Dominican
Republic during the first week of November 2004. ICCDCS 2004 is
the fifth in the series of ICCDCS biannual international conferences
intended to provide a forum for exchanging recent information,
knowledge and experience, and for establishing personal and professional
contacts among engineers, scientists and academicians working
in the areas of its coverage. The conference will cover several
fields of Electronics Engineering, from basic scientific theory
to industrial applications, dealing with research, development,
design, technology and applications of electron devices, the theory,
analysis, design, and practical implementation of circuits, and
the application to systems and to signal processing. The program
will include a plenary session, invited talks on selected topics
and contributed oral presentations.
ICCDCS has been held periodically since 1995 at different locations
in the Caribbean basin. The previous occurrence of the Conference
(ICCDCS 2002) took place in Aruba. The word "Caracas"
appears in its title in remembrance of the first of this series
of conferences (ICCDCS'95), which was held in Caracas, Venezuela,
on December 12-14, 1995.
For more information, please contact: Prof. Francisco J. Garcia
Sanchez, E-mail: fgarcia@ieee.org,
http://pancho.labc.usb.ve/ICCDCS2004.
- Adelmo Ortiz-Conde, Editor
EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA (REGION 8)
EDS Distinguished Lecturer/ Chapter Partner Visits
Minsk
-by Albert Wang
I visited the ED Minsk chapter on July 7 and 8, as the Chapter
partner and Distinguished Lecturer. The local ED Chapter Chair,
Prof. Sergei Malyshev of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus,
hosted me. On July 7th, I delivered a lecture for the local ED/SSC
members at the Integral, a major regional microelectronics company,
on Advanced ESD Protection for ICs. The seminar was well accepted
by the audience of 40. Further discussion followed after the lecture,
including reviewing some of their recent designs related to the
technical topics. There were mutual interests in future collaboration
on related IC designs. On July 8th, I visited the Institute of
Electronics of the National Academy of Sciences and held an in-depth
discussion with Prof. Malyshev on various issues regarding local
chapter activities. In particular, Prof. Malyshev pointed out
that the EDS Membership Fee Subsidy Program has been vital for
the local chapter to keep the member volume and organize various
activities. However, concern was raised as to whether such society
support would continue in the future, which is really critical
to the chapters in the relatively lower income areas. For example,
other IEEE society chapters in Minsk actually stopped functioning
due to a loss of membership because the fee is too high for local
members. Regardless, the Minsk Chapter has been very active the
past year in organizing various technical activities, such as,
hosting the annual Inter-University PhD Research forum in Europe.
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Professor Albert Wang (center) visits the ED MINSK Chapter |
EDS Distinguished Lecturer/Chapter
Partner Visits Czech Republic
-by James B. Kuo
I visited the MTT/AP/ED Czechoslovakia Chapter September 10-12,
2003. The IEEE Czechoslovakia Section Chair, Prof. Jan Vobecky
gave me a very nice reception to the Czech Technical University
in Prague, where I also gave an EDS DL talk on Challenges of SOI
CMOS VLSI. The Czech Republic has a high potential for recruiting
EDS student members, since its EE student body is over 2000.
I am quite impressed with the semiconductor research activities
there. In addition, the Chapter Vice Chair, Prof. Pavel Hazdra,
also explained to me the status of the Czech's semiconductor industry
and its academia. I also visited a local IC design company in
Prague, which is reflecting the booming high-tech industry in
the Czech Republic. I was told that after the Czech Republic joins
EU next year; the semiconductor industry will be even more promising.
- Andrzej Napieralski, Editor
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James Kuo visits the MTT/AP/ED Czechoslavakia Chapter |
MTT/ED/AP/CPMT/SSC West Ukraine
-by Mykhailo I. Andriychuk
Mr. Richard L. Doyle, IEEE Division VI Director and past President
of the IEEE Reliability Society, visited the Chapter on September
5-6, 2003. The questions of cooperation between the IEEE Reliability
Society and the West Ukraine Chapter, as well as the Chapter activity
and perspectives were discussed.
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Mr. Richard L. Doyle (in center) and the West Ukraine Chapter Officers at the business luncheon |
MTT/ED/AP/CPMT Saratov-Penza
-by Michael V. Davidovich
The Chapter's activity within the period from August 2002 to August
2003 is presented here.
Due to our efforts, the total number of IEEE members was increased
in 2003. Today we have 29 members (including 3 Student Members
and 2 SM) in Saratov and Penza cities. We can note the good potential
for new growth of IEEE membership in the Saratov State University
(SSU) and Saratov State Technical University (SSTU).This year
our chapter successfully held 5 scientific events. These events
are:
