2011 Mahboob Khan Outstanding Industry Liaison Award Winners

2011 award recipients

[Note:  The following is the presentation of the 2011 Mahboob Khan Outstanding Industry Liaison Awards by Dr. Celia Merzbacher, SRC Vice President Innovative Partnerships, at TECHCON 2011.]

The Industry Liaison Program captures the essence of SRC. It brings together faculty researchers, graduate students, and technical experts from the SRC member companies and provides for interactions that benefit each. The Industry Liaisons, who are at the heart of the program, have three roles.  They provide input and feedback to the researchers in the course of the project.  They act as mentors to students.  And they promote technology transfer back to their company.  However, as one nominator noted, the liaison to their project didn’t limit his contribution to benefiting his own company. His involvement (e.g. in making results public through conferences and publications) provided an effective channel to promote the research projects to all SRC member companies—and the community at large.

The Mahboob Khan Outstanding Industry Liaison Award, named in memory of a long-time Industry Liaison program advocate from AMD, is presented to those individuals who have made significant contribution to the GRC community in their roles as Industry Liaisons.  Many Industry Liaisons fulfill their responsibilities admirably.  But some go above and beyond. This year we recognize 15 individuals for their extraordinary commitment to the program. It gives me great pleasure to present the 2011 Mahboob Khan Outstanding Industry Liaison Awards.

George “Andy” Antonelli, Novellus was nominated by Jeffry Kelber at the University of North Texas and Leon Shohet at the University of Wisconsin.  The researchers noted that Andy’s input directly impacted the design and conduct of their experiments. Outside of the research, he mentored the students, helping them prepare for job interviews (not just at Novellus).

Jason Baumgartner, IBM was nominated by Alan Mishchenko for work with Robert Brayton at UC/Berkeley. Jason’s feedback helped improve the efficiency of the researchers’ code, greatly enhancing its utility. According to Robert Brayton, Jason Baumgartner “has been so good that I do not think of him as an SRC mentor but as a valued colleague.”

Jayanta Bhadra, Freescale was nominated by Li-C Wang, UC Santa Barbara, who relied on Jay to tell his team what were the most important problems to solve and how the research could be made more practical. The closeness of their collaboration is illustrated by their many joint publications.

Ken Butler, Texas Instruments was nominated by a multi-university team of researchers.Ken Butler provided a rich set of resources including manufacturing and testing data, design and CAD tool capabilities, as well as access to other experts within TI.

Keith Green, Texas Instruments was nominated by John Cressler and his student Seth Sachin at Georgia Tech.  Keith worked tirelessly to help make the project a success— providing valuable feedback during monthly calls, opening doors and making connections at TI. In addition, Keith arranged an enriching internship at TI for Sachin Seth.

Ram Krishnamurthy, Intel wasnominated for work with Kaushik Roy at Purdue University. Ram is recognized for being involved with everything from working with Dr. Roy to formulate a proposal to placing interns, guiding technology transfer and eventually hiring students as employees at Intel.

Hsi-an Kwong, Freescale was nominated by Professor Farhang Shadman at the Univ. of Arizona. Hsi-An initiated and managed all efforts for testing and validating research results in a manufacturing environment using Freescale fabs.  For over eight years Hsi-An has been a dedicated and active member of the ERC’s Industrial Advisory Board.  Marie Burnham will accept the award on Hsi-an’s behalf.

Chung-Hsun Lin and Richard Williams, both at IBM, were nominated jointly for work with Professor Chenming Hu at UC/Berkeley.  The two have been an excellent Liaison Team. Together they provided test data and drove the discussion for standardization. As a result, the Berkeley model is the only one for fully-depleted multi-gated devices currently considered for standardization. 

Gary Morrison, Freescale was nominated for work with Professor Kevin Skadron at University of Virginia. The nomination notes Gary’s efforts have been continuous since the project began and he has found new and creative ways to interface with developing Freescale efforts.   His efforts led to a series of meetings culminating in breakfast with Freescale CEO Rich Beyer. 

Vijay Reddy, Texas Instruments was nominated for work with Prof. Mehrdad Nourani (UT-Dallas) et al.  Vijay was cited in particular for his dedication to students.  He provided encouragement and guidance that led to student-authored publications in top conference proceedings and journals, as well as two DAC/ISSCC Student Design Awards and a Best in Session Award at Techcon.

Robert Rosenberg, IBM was nominated by Eric Eisenbraun and Kathleen Dunn at SUNY Albany. Robert is recognized as a great champion of good research that is motivated by a combination of the science and the potential for addressing real issues facing continued improvements in IC technology. Dan Edelstein is accepting the award on Robert’s behalf.

Todd Ryan, GLOBALFOUNDRIES was nominated by Choong-Un Kim at UT-Arlington.  Todd has been a close collaborator, providing clear guidance from the industry perspective.  He took time to build trust, asked good questions, came up with new ideas, and supplied much-needed samples. In addition, he took a keen interest in the students.  Seung-Hyun Rhee is accepting the award on Todd’s behalf.

Hong Wang , Intel was nominated by Subhasish Mitra, Stanford University and Robert Nguyen, Intel (former student).  The researchers cited Hong Wang for challenging the researchers— introducing them to industry-relevant problems, providing feedback and access to infrastructure, and mentoring students (including arranging for a year-long internship for Robert Nguyen that eventually turned into a fulltime job at Intel).

Jeff Zhao, Texas Instruments was nominated by Professor Herman Nied at Lehigh University and Paul Ho at UT/Austin.  His enthusiasm and excellent research knowledge on reliability physics have contributed greatly to the success of the research.  Darven Edwards is accepting on Jeff’s behalf.

In closing—as one nominator stated, “The way for a liaison to be successful in aligning SRC research [with industry needs] is through devotion of time and effort.”  On behalf of the students, the researchers, and SRC, thank you all for the considerable and invaluable “time and effort” that you have given in your roles as Industry Liaisons.