28-30 September, 2003
Toulouse France

BCTM 2003 will take place at the Pierre Baudis Convention Center in downtown Toulouse, near the Capitole Square pictured here.

Wireless communications is a burgeoning market area and a major driver behind the semiconductor industry, and SiGe BiCMOS and III-V technologies have emerged as the manufacturing processes of choice for many wireless ICs. If you work or are interested in this exciting area, then the IEEE Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM) is a conference you want to attend.
Historically, BCTM has been held in Minneapolis, MN. However, due to popular demand, the conference is now on the road - in 2002 in Monterey, CA, and in 2003 (for the first time in Europe), in Toulouse, France. Through the years, Europe has been a stronghold of bipolar research and development, in manufacturing technologies and circuits, and in both industry and academic institutions. So we moved BCTM to one of the main bipolar centers of gravity. The pent-up demand for a European venue showed up in paper submissions for 2003, 30% more overall than in 2002, more than twice as many submissions from Europe as ever before, and for the first time there were more submissions from Europe than from North America.
The technical program for BCTM consists of one day of Short Courses given by noted industry experts, and two days of invited and contributed technical presentations, including a special session on emerging technologies. There will be exhibits from vendors with products of interest to those working in the bipolar/BiCMOS area. In conjunction with BCTM, TU Delft will be holding a one-day workshop in Toulouse on Compact Modeling for RF/Microwave Applications, on Wednesday, 1 October.
Social events have always been a highlight of BCTM, and this year will be no exception. There will be a welcome and registration reception on the Sunday evening. Several local tours have been arranged for people accompanying BCTM attendees, and there will be a banquet on the Monday evening, featuring a Renaissance dance troupe. Tours of local technical facilities (Airbus Industrie, LAAS, Motorola, and CNES) have been arranged for Wednesday, 1 October, and there is a tour to the nearby historic walled town of Carcassonne on Thursday, 2 October.
The Short Course will be in three parts. Professor Hermann Schumacher (University of Ulm) will address Si/SiGe HBT MMIC design techniques for 20 GHz and beyond. Professor Albert Wang (Illinois Institute of Technology) will cover ESD protection issues and design in RF and advanced BiCMOS technologies. Dr. Peter Magnee (Philips Research) will discuss state-of-the-art RF BiCMOS processes.
The keynote talk will be given by Dr. Jan Slotboom (Philips Research and TU Delft), an international authority on BJTs, on BJT evolution in Europe. The luncheon talk on Monday, always a conference favorite, will be given by Dr. Jean-Marie Chopin (Airbus Industrie) on the evolution of fly-by-wire.
The technical program consists of 11 sessions, with 44 papers in all (including 5 double-length invited papers), plus the special emerging technology session. Session topics include RF and high-speed circuits, process technology (including power devices), bipolar device physics, and modeling and simulation of BJTs. The special emerging technologies session will start with Professor Jean Therme (LETI/CEA Grenoble) talking about MINATEC, the European Center for Innovation in Micro and Nano-Technologies. Dr. Joost van Beek of Philips will present "High-Q integrated RF passive and micro-mechanical capacitors on silicon." Dr. Jean-Luc Pelloie (SOISIC) will cover "Reliability issues in SOI technologies and circuits." Professor Rashid Bashir (Purdue) will present "From BioMEMS to bionanotechnology: interfacing life sciences and engineering at the micro and nanoscale."
So between the exciting move to Europe, the technical presentations, and the associated TU Delft workshop and BCTM tours and banquet, BCTM2003 is a must for those working in bipolar/BiCMOS technologies. And did we mention the local French culture, food, and wine? And the reduced-fare TGV from Paris via Bordeaux?
We hope you will join the BCTM World Tour, - see you in Toulouse! See www.ieee-bctm.org for more details (links to other local activities and sites are included).

Colin McAndrew
General Program Chair
Ross Teggatz
Technical Program Chair
Marise Bafleur
Local Arrangements Chair