News

8 October 2008

 

IQE's Roy Blunt receives SEMI Europe Standards Honor Award

At the SEMI Executive Summit at the SEMICON Europa show in Stuttgart, Germany, SEMI Europe of Brussels, Belgium presented Roy Blunt, Special Projects manager at epiwafer foundry and substrate maker IQE of Cardiff, Wales, UK, with the 2008 Standards Honor Award for establishing the SEMI Europe Standards Compound Technical Committee and for his contribution to the development of Compound related standards and guidelines.

In conjunction with Wolfgang Jantz, Blunt established the SEMI European Standards Compound Committee in 1998. Prior to that, he has been actively involved with the association since the early 1980s, when he worked on magnetic bubble memories and attended a SEMI GGG (gadolinium gallium garnet) committee meeting at one of the big magnetics conferences in the USA.

As co-chair of the SEMI European Standards Compound Committee, he led several task forces and contributed to the development of several other standards on both a European and international level.

Blunt has been presented with the Honor Award for his long-standing dedication and to the advancement of SEMI standards, says SEMI Europe’s president Heinz Kundert. “ SEMI would like to express its gratitude for his unselfish contributions, perseverance, commitment and enthusiasm toward the SEMI International Standards Program, and the overall success of our industry,” he adds.

The SEMI International Standards program has provided a mechanism for industry experts to develop key standards for equipment and materials. “The Standards program is a success thanks to commitments by several thousand of individuals assigned by their companies that represent all sectors of the industry, across all regions of the world,” notes Kundert. “To every volunteer, and to their management, SEMI expresses its appreciation for their efforts, contribution and dedication.”

*IMEC CEO Declerck receives European SEMI Award

In addition, professor Gilbert Declerck was presented with the European SEMI Award 2008 for leading IMEC, as its CEO, into its position as one of the world’s most prestigious independent microelectronics research institutes.

Declerck led process technology research at IMEC from its foundation in 1984, and grew this technical area into IMEC's most successful domain. SEMI says that, by building teams with the ambition and skills to match leading research with the needs of the industry, he has developed a highly regarded institute. Over the years, he has kept IMEC’s research in many areas at the forefront of required semiconductor process development.

Declerck was a driving force in the creation of a strong IMEC position in European cooperative projects during the early 1990s, enabling it to become a leading research center in Europe by the end of that decade. This coincided with a transition from basic process research to full CMOS process integration R&D. European partnerships, both at university and industrial level, also increased considerably.

In the new millennium, Declerck realized that sustainable continuity of world-class R&D could only be guaranteed by an ambitious innovation program in terms of facility capabilities (300mm), resources, and state-of-the-art targets, requiring a commitment to collaborate with worldwide industrial partners in many semiconductor segments.

Declerck has been an advocate of cooperative R&D as the optimum method for stimulating IC manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, material suppliers, and leading groups to join IMEC. Together with Dr Luc Van den hove, he set up a cooperation model for IMEC's nanoelectronics platform, which helped to attract leading semiconductor companies to IMEC with substantial commitment toward leading-edge sub-32nm CMOS research.

Over the past five years, they took up the challenge of building IMEC's research platform, which now employs 1500 people on site with an annual budget of €240m (more than 80% from industrial partnership contributions). Most leading world semiconductor manufacturers participate in this effort, along with all major equipment and material suppliers, making it the world's largest R&D consortium for semiconductor research in partnership. IMEC has built on this by expanding its activity toward memory-related research.

Convinced that a stronger European industry would emerge from worldwide alliances, over the course of his career Declerck has adopted an open-minded strategy towards industry, building from its European base by cooperating with the US and Asia. He has invested in scientific and industrial relationships, while continuing to fight for Europe on various boards and committees such as ENIAC, Catrene, and others.

Today, many of the world’s major semiconductor manufacturers have contracted research programs at IMEC. IMEC hence plays an important role in the creation of new semiconductor technologies, manufactured and commercialized by industrial partners. The R&D program at IMEC has boosted Europe's capabilities in semiconductor technologies, concludes SEMI, and has been instrumental in the development of a cooperative academic/industrial ecosystem in Europe.

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