Report by REL/CPMT/ED
Singapore Chapter for
The Section's meeting on 27 Jul 2004
1. Technical talks
· Apr 15, Professor Chandan Kumar Sarkar (IEEE EDS distinguished
lecturer) of Jadavpur University, India gave a talk on "Gate
Oxide Degradation in MOS Devices under high field stress-breakdown
issues and the model".
· May 20, Professor Kishor S. Trivedi of Duke University,
USA gave a talk on "Reliability modeling: tools & techniques".
· May 27, Dr. Lakshmi Kanta Bera of Institute of Microelectronics,
Singapore gave a talk on "Strained-Si MOSFETs and high-K
gate dielectrics for advanced CMOS applications".
· July 13, Professor Juin J. Liou (IEEE EDS distinguished
lecturer) of University of Central Florida, USA gave a talk on
"Characterization and simulation of reliability of MOS devices".
· July 14, Professor Ananth Dodabalapur of University of
Texas at Austin, USA gave a talk on "Finding applications
for organic transistors".
· On July 15, Mr Steve Groothuis of Micron Technology Texas
LLC, USA gave a talk on "Advanced CAE simulations in the
semiconductor industry".
· On Aug 04, Dr Ahila Krishnamoorthy, Institute of Microelectronics,
Singapore gave a talk on "Interfacial engineering to improve
the reliability of Cu interconnects".
2. EPTC
EPTC'04
The 6th EPTC is scheduled for 8 - 10 December 2004. The Call for
Papers has received a good response and close to 200 abstracts
have been received, topping the submissions in 2003. All the arrangements
for a successful conference are being made including the short
courses, keynote and invited speeches, table-top exhibition and
social events. A new feature will be an executive forum on the
trend and directions in key packaging thrusts targeted at technology
leaders in the region. With the industry pick-up and the impending
lead-free implementation, it is expected that EPTC 2004 will generate
even greater interest and participation.
3. IPFA
IPFA'04
The 2004 International Symposium on the Physical and Failure Analysis
of Integrated Circuits (IPFA'04), jointly organized by IEEE ED
Taipei Chapter, IEEE Taipei Section, National Chiao Tung University
(NCTU) and IEEE Rel/CPMT/ED Singapore Chapter, and technically
co-sponsored by the EDS was a great success. More than 70 technical
papers were presented, including two Keynote speeches on "Opportunities
and challenges for high-k gate dielectrics" by Prof. T. P.
Ma of Yale University, USA and "Technology and reliability
challenges: A foundry perspective" by Dr. Jack Sun of TSMC,
Taiwan. As per the IPFA tradition, four tutorial sessions and
an equipment exhibition were held in conjunction with IPFA'04.
A special IEEE Transaction on Device Materials and Reliability
(TDMR) issue will be published for the selected IPFA'04 papers
after going through the standard vigorous peer review.
IPFA'04 at Lakeshore, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
IPFA'05
The organizing committee of IPFA'05 has been formed by the general
chair, Dr. Alastair Trigg of the Institute of Microelectronics,
Singapore. It will be held in Singapore, 27 - 31 June 2005. The
first call for paper was announced at IPFA'04 in Taiwan in July
2004.
4. The 4th Workshop and IEEE EDS Mini-colloquium on NAnometer CMOS Technology (WIMNACT-Singapore) was successfully held on July 12, 2004 in Singapore. This mini-colloquium was organized and sponsored by the IEEE Rel/CPMT/ED Singapore Chapter, and co-sponsored by the EDS Distinguished Lecturer (DL) Program and Subcommittee for Regions/Chapters (SRC) as well as the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). The Guest-of-Honor was Prof. Meng Hwa Er, Deputy President and Dean, School of EEE, NTU, who delivered a welcome address to the invited guests and the audience. There were five invited DL speakers, including four from overseas and one from the local Chapter. The first talk was given by Prof. Cary Yang from Santa Clara University entitled "Carbon Nanotubes as On-chip Interconnects," followed by the talk on "Trends on Low-Voltage SOI CMOS VLSI Devices and Circuits" given by Prof. James Kuo of National Taiwan University. After lunch at the NTU staff club with the invited guests and Chapter committee members, Prof. Juin Liou from University of Central Florida gave the talk on "On-Chip Spiral Inductors for RF Applications: An Overview," following by the talk on "An Overview of CMOS Technology for RF IC Applications" given by Dr. Yuhua Cheng from Skyworks Solutions. The Workshop ended with the talk by Prof. Xing Zhou on "Technology-Based Predictive Compact Model Development for Next Generation CMOS." In summary, the 4th WIMNACT-Singapore has been another successful event after the 3rd WIMNACT-Singapore, which was organized by the Chapter in October 2003. The Workshop received enthusiastic response with more than 100 attendees from the local industries and academic institutions. They showed deep interests in the invited talks, which covered a wide range of important topics of current and future technologies. The complete information on the 4th WIMNACT-Singapore, including all the slides and snapshots, has been made available from the following website: https://www.ntu.edu.sg/eee/eee6/conf/WIMNACT04.htm.
5. The Chapter has donated S$1,200 to Temasek Polytechnic for a Bronze Course Medal Award in 2004 and 2005.
6. Plans
§ One technical talk has been organized in August.
§ A series of video courses on the past IEDM short courses
will be organized between Sep and Dec 2004.
§ A series of short courses on ICFA has been planed for Oct-Dec
2004.
§ A one-day course on "Advanced Cu interconnects"
by Dr. Jeffrey Gambino of IBM has been planned in Dec 2004.
By KL PEY
Chair, REL/CPMT/ED Chapter