John K. Lowell
The Spring Administrative Committee (AdCom) Meeting of the IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS) was held on Sunday, 7 June, at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel, Honolulu, HI, in conjunction with the 1998 Symposia on VLSI Circuits & Technology.
After a formal acceptance of the minutes from the December AdCom, President, Bruce Griffing, opened the meeting by reporting that the IEEE Millennium Project, scheduled for the year 2000, is looking for inputs from the various society Presidents. The project is intended to commemorate the activities of the IEEE societies in that year with a variety of projects exemplifying the "last fifty years and the next fifty years" of each society. The chairs of the EDS technical committees (and any other members) are asked to summarize those activities of scientific and historical interest, and submit them to Bruce. The President's Report also included information on another IEEE directive towards meeting the needs of the "practicing engineer". This effort is meant to direct society concern and action towards meeting the needs of engineers/members who are not primarily in R&D, but in sustaining or "practical" positions. The thrust will initially be educational. EDS may offer short courses tailored to the intellectual needs of these professionals. Prof. Jason Woo of UCLA has been selected to head the EDS Adhoc Short Course Committee looking into this initiative and he welcomes input and ideas on this topic from all members. It was then announced that the site for the Spring 1999 AdCom meeting would be Kyoto, Japan. This also will be held in conjunction with the VLSI Symposia. It will be the first AdCom meeting held outside the US. If the AdCom meeting in Japan is successful, consideration will be given to holding the Spring 2000 AdCom meeting in Europe. By holding some of its AdCom meetings outside the US, EDS hopes to encourage more participation from its non-US members.
Vice President, Cary Yang, presented a summary of the 6 June Executive Committee (ExCom) meeting, much of which will be discussed within this article. Treasurer, Lu Kasprzak, reported that EDS is in excellent financial health. All publications, such as Electron Device Letters (EDL), Transactions on Electron Devices (T-ED), Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing (T-SM) and the Journal of Electronic Materials (JECMA) are doing well financially; they are meeting their budgets and keeping costs down. The Book Broker Program and conferences, which are major revenue-generating areas, are also doing well. Expenses are up over previous years, but reflect our financial outlay for continued globalization and membership promotion in Regions 8, 9 & 10 (Europe, Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia & Pacific, respectively). A motion was approved to move $1 million from reserves into the IEEE Long-Term Investment Program.
Bill Van Der Vort and his staff in the EDS Executive Office in Piscataway, NJ, continue to be busy and productive. Among their current adhoc projects are preparation of the five-year Society and Publications Reviews which were held at the IEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) meeting in June and assisting in the development of the new EDS "Chapter of the Year" award, in collaboration with Cary Yang, Regions/Chapters Chair. Their other chapter-related efforts include: the initiation of a "Region Champions" program to identify opportunities for the formation of new chapters; arranging for the Division I & IV Region 8 Chapters Meeting in Amsterdam; development of the 1998 EDS Membership Directory; and continued coordination of membership promotions at major meetings such as the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), the Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), and the VLSI Symposia. On the publications side, the office has been instrumental regarding the following: getting the new Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters (ESL) started; coordinating the production and distribution of the new CD ROM (which includes all the 1997 T-ED, EDL & IEDM papers); coordinating the set-up of the new EDS membership benefit for EDS members of free on-line access to T-ED, EDL, ESL, Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Microwave and Guided Wave Letters, Transactions on Information Theory and Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control (by reciprocal agreement with each respective Society), effective with the start of the 1999 billing cycle (September 1st); and re-establishment of a better working relationship with the IEEE Press. The new arrangement with the IEEE Press, headed by Kwok Ng, will get the eleven technical committees involved with proposal reviews and suggestions for new initiatives for IEEE Press reflecting EDS interests. The Executive Office has also helped seven meetings obtain EDS sponsorship/technical co-sponsorship support. The Executive Office will be assuming the technical responsibility for the EDS Home Page which was previously performed by the Home Page Editor, Lisa McIlrath, coordinating the arrangements for the Meetings Best Practices Workshop, and beginning to implement a new process management plan at the office.
James Kuo (standing in for T. Paul Chow, Membership chair) informed the AdCom of recent membership activities. At the end of 1997, EDS membership totaled 11,471 members, which was a five percent growth. This was the 2nd highest growth rate of all 37 IEEE societies. As of April of this year, EDS stood at 11,338 members which as a 12.3% rise over April of 1997. Membership promotions at major meetings continue to do well with IEDM generating 116 new members, ISSCC having 313, and CICC providing twenty. Similarly, 126 members were signed-up through a direct-mail campaign. Paul Chow and his Membership Committee also plan to consider the possibility of sending out a member survey worldwide to a selected group of 1,000 members. A motion to continue the IEEE Marketing Direct Mail Campaign in 1999 at a cost of $7,000 was approved. The AdCom also discussed the possibilities of linking membership promotions at the chapter level with consideration of an award for the most new members, and the encouragement of more "affiliated" members with other societies such as MRS, ECS, etc.
Cary Yang reported that two new chapters have been formed since the December AdCom meeting. They are the ED Cuba and ED Mexico CINVESTAV-IPN Student Branch chapters. This brings the total number of chapters to ninety. The 1998 Region 8 Chapters Meeting will be held in October at the European Microwave Symposium (EuMC) in Amsterdam, the 1998 Regions 1-7 & 9 Meeting will take place at the IEDM in San Francisco and the next Region 10 Chapters Meeting will be held at the 1999 VLSI Symposia in Kyoto. As previously stated, the Region Champions Program has been started, initially targeting Regions 1-7. These Champions are to examine the existing distribution of EDS members in these regions to see if a new chapter (by affiliation, expansion or self-incorporation) is warranted. The new annual Chapter of the Year Award will be presented at the IEDM. AdCom approved to extend its support for another three years to subsidize IEEE, EDS and Microwave Theory and Techniques (MTT) memberships and publication subscriptions for 155 members in eleven chapters in Eastern Europe (14 members per chapter). There is now a requirement that 4-6 of the individuals of each chapter must be Ônew' members each year. AdCom approval of this program to the year 2002 was contingent on MTT's continuing its involvement. Subsequent to the meeting, MTT approved the extension of support.
Three 1998 conference reports were presented: the International Symposium on Statistical Metrology, Silicon Nanoelectronics Workshop, and the Symposia on VLSI Circuits & Technology. All three meetings reported improved technical content and good attendance. They are all seeing a reduction in attendees from all over the world due to the present economic downturn. The Silicon Nanoelectronics Workshop reported that they have been invited to publish some of their papers and abstracts in the Nanotechnology journal. This was discussed in AdCom, since the capture of EDS-sponsored conference material by non-EDS publications is a possible area of concern. One possible solution to this is to expand the EDS CD ROM Package to include the published proceedings of EDS conferences. Arlene Santos (standing in for Jerry Woodall, Educational Activities Chair) briefed the AdCom on the status of the action items for the Educational Activities Committee from the December 1997 AdCom meeting. Arlene Santos has been appointed as the EDS liaison to the Educational Activities Board (EAB). The committee will also begin to include professional activities as one of its responsibilities. Arlene reported that there are now a total of 91 Distinguished Lecturers and 17 IEDM Short Course videotapes were borrowed from the EDS Lending Library for 1997.
Publications Chair, Steve Hillenius, advised that about 500 members have purchased the 1997 EDS CD ROM Package which includes the 1997 issues of EDL & T-ED and the 1997 IEDM proceedings. His committee is considering archival CD ROMs, which may include all past years of T-ED, EDL & IEDM. Estimates are that one disk would cover ten years of these two publications. In the future, these disks may include all papers & abstracts from all EDS journals & publications, and the proceedings of 100% financially sponsored conferences. Previously mentioned items such as the IEEE Press initiative, and Kwok Ng's role were reviewed. Steve also suggested a motion that EDS return all royalties from EDS sponsored IEEE Press book sales to the respective author(s), which was approved. He also announced that I.Y. Yang, A. Chandrakasan & D. Antoniadis will receive the 1997 Paul Rappaport Award for their paper in the May 1997 T-ED. The agreement between The Electrochemical Society (ECS) & EDS to publish the Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters has been signed and the first issue (July) is now available on the World Wide Web (http://www.electrochem.org/letters.html) and in paper and microfiche.
Jim Clemens, Meetings Chair, stated that there are now a total of 118 meetings for which EDS provides some type of support. Specifically, there are 33 sponsored/co-sponsored, 71 technically co-sponsored & 14 cooperatively sponsored. Renewal of support for the major meetings in all categories of sponsorship for the 2nd half of 1999 was approved. Jim reported that delinquent documentation from the Device Research Conference for the years 95-98 has been received or promised and the issues surrounding this have been resolved. The IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC) has requested that the Solid-State Circuits Society replace EDS as the full financial sponsor and to have EDS become a non-financial technical co-sponsor. This will take effect as of the 1999 occurrence. He also announced that the new Intl. Interconnect Technology Conference, held for the first time the previous week, reported good attendance and was considered a success. In related conference news, the continuation of co-support between EDS and the Reliability Society for the IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS) and the IEEE Integrated Reliability Workshop (IRW) meetings will continue for 1999.
New requests for 25% co-sponsorship for the International Conference on Microelectronics (MIEL) in Yugoslavia (Sept. 1999), and 100% sponsorship of the International Conference on Vacuum Electronics were also approved. For the latter meeting, the sponsorship applied only to those meetings which are held in the US & Japan. When the meeting rotates to Europe, EDS will only provide technical co-sponsorship.
In the area of other business, Bruce Griffing reported that a committee headed by the Awards Chair, H. Craig Casey, has suggested that the current IEEE Field Award, the Jack A. Morton Award (which passed responsibility for the 1999 award to EDS from Lucent Technologies) be re-named for Andrew S. Grove beginning in the year 2000. The proposal was approved. Arlene Santos, AdCom member and representative for the Baltimore EDS chapter, asked and received approval for $3,000 to be designated for the Historical Electronics Museum in Baltimore to promote their activity and encourage the inclusion of semiconductor electronics history and memorabilia into their collection.
Bruce also continued with the list of EDS goals for 1998 and 1999 which include: Revitalize/increase current chapters in Regions 1-7, determine whether we should develop a member survey to determine the needs of our members, develop & implement methods to grow membership (increase programs, start new ones), implement the new member benefit of producing on-line access to EDL, T-ED, ESL and the publications of several societies for all EDS members, change content and format of the Best Practices Workshop and implement process management in the Executive Office.
Technical Committee Chairs also reported on their recent activities. Reliability Chair Lu Kasprzak, reported that his committee is supporting the idea of a new cross-society (EDS, ECS, MRS, AVS) publication solely on reliability issues. This will be taken under advisement to study the need for such a journal and how it would be organized. Vacuum Devices Chair, Jim Dayton feels that his committee has taken the lead to establish the International Conference on Vacuum Microelectronics, become a consolidated, widely supported meeting in this area. It replaces many smaller meetings in this area and provides a forum to increase Far East participation. Beyond that, the committee is looking into new educational opportunities, videos, visiting lecturers, and other new initiatives in this technical area. The Semiconductor Manufacturing Committee, headed by Arlene Santos, is exploring new ways to embrace such issues as feature-size reduction, yield enhancement, new materials, 300mm design, cost, design for manufacturability, human resources, and factory networks which are all major factors in both present and future wafer fab production. They wish to promote cross-disciplinary approaches to solving these problems and are looking into joint projects with the VLSI Technology Committee and others. Arlene is also looking into consolidating conferences such as the International Symposium on Semiconductor Manufacturing (ISSM) and the Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference & Workshop (ASMC) into one, and using her group to define skill sets for future fabs. The VLSI Technology Committee (reported by John Lowell for Chair Charlie Sodini) is also looking into many projects and has identified 300mm technology (joint with the semiconductor manufacturing committee), interconnect, and TCAD as some of their targets. Charlie's group has also defined a special session on "Passive Elements & Active Device Modeling", and a panel discussion on "RF integration" for future meetings.
The meeting closed with some Chapter Chair and Chapter Partner reports given by Masao Fukuma (Tokyo Chapter Representative), Hiroshi Iwai (Partner for Finland, Singapore & Korea chapters) and Ilesanmi Adesida (Partner for Baltimore, Northeastern University, and Venezuela chapters). There were also meeting reviews for the CICC, IEDM, International Conference on Microelectronic Test Structures (ICMTS), IRPS, and Non-Volatile Semiconductor Memory Workshop (NVSMW). A final discussion on the question of member needs (i.e. what do we do to serve the needs of those members for whom T-ED & EDL are not a major benefit?) brought the meeting to a final adjournment.
John K. Lowell
EDS Secretary