The SSCS France Chapter: Questions for Laurent Fesquet

Laurent Fesquet is currently in charge of the French IEEE-SSCS Chapter. He received his engineering degree in physics from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Physique de Strasbourg in 1993 and his MA in applied physics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan in 1994. He received his PhD in electrical engineering in 1997 from the University of Toulouse. Since 1999, he has been an associate professor at INPG and is working on asynchronous microelectronic systems in the TIMA laboratory.

Laurent Fesquet organizes events dynamically, taking advantage of experts’ travel and hot topics. It’s a success for those employed in industry but student needs are still a focus of program development.
Q: How do you plan chapter events and speakers?
There are mainly two ways that lead to a chapter activity:
1.) Most of the time, I use the traveling schedule of experts as an opportunity to invite them as speakers and organize a chapter event. For example, on June 14th a PhD defense is organized in my laboratory, TIMA. One of the jury members, Christian Piguet, is the head of the ultra-low-power circuits section of the CSEM center in Switzerland. In addition, Vojin Oklobdzija, an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer and professor at the University of California, Davis, is currently at EPFL in Switzerland too. This gave me an opportunity to organize a technical event on “Leakage, energy, and speed in digital circuits” on June 15th.
2.) Less often, we determine a hot topic with some of the active members. For instance, last year we organized a workshop on a topical subject: “System on A Chip: Design for low power.” This event was held in cooperation with the French CAS chapter and ATMEL, a microelectronics company. As ATMEL had suggested this topic, we decided to organize the meeting in Rousset. For this event we invited three IEEE Distinguished Lecturers: Professor Sakurai and Professor Vladimirescu from the CAS society and Dr. Itoh from the SSCS.
Who are some of the people (not the speakers) who help you organize events for the France SSCS chapter? What do they do?
I usually find an active member interested in the topic to help me organize the event. Moreover, we have developed cooperative relationships with the CAS and the CPMT chapters to organize meetings on integrated systems. So it is possible to cover many topics, from packaging to system design.
What type of administrative meetings does your leadership hold?
Most of the time administrative meetings are not formal and are not held during a national conference. To save time, we use conference calls.
How many people is a good number to organize and run a chapter? and why?
From my point of view, four or five people are needed to manage a chapter. A few active people are better than many inactive people.
What do you find satisfying about running the chapter?
I enjoy meeting a lot of people in the SSCS domain.
How do chapter events serve industry needs?
Most events serve industry because some of the activities are proposed by industry members and the technical events attract primarily those employed in industry—thanks to the quality of the speakers and the choice of hot topics.
How do chapter events serve student needs?
This is difficult! Except for PhD students, it is difficult to serve student needs. Indeed, it is almost impossible to organize events with the masters and engineering students. The French educational system in science and the French student culture for the masters and engineering students makes it difficult to organize events for them.
What kind of volunteer roles are you looking to fill?
I am currently looking for volunteers to help organize student activities—unsuccessfully so far!
What else would you like your chapter to do if you had the time and the budget?
If I had enough time, I probably would edit a French journal of solid-state circuits, including chapter information and technical papers. This would help maintain contact with the members and attract more students in the domain.