2009 Mahboob Khan Outstanding Industry Liaison Award Winners Recognized at TECHCON 2009 By SRC Vice-President, Celia Merzbacher

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 GRC students. And they are a channel for technology transfer back to the SRC companies.

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 five individuals are being recognized for their extraordinary commitment to the program. During the TECHCON 2009 banquet SRC Vice-President, Celia Merzbacher, presented 2009 Mahboob Khan Outstanding Industry Liaison Awards to Christian Witt from GLOBALFOUNDRIES (formerly with AMD) and Shih-Lien Lu from Intel Corporation. Also recognized but unable to attend were Sanu Mathew and Wilman Tsai of Intel and Matthew Miller of Freescale Semiconductors.

Christian A. Witt/GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Celia Merzbacher/SRC and Shih-Lien Lu/Intel

Shih-lien Lu of Intel has been an Industry Liaison on a project led by Todd Austin and Valeria Bertacco at the University of Michigan on defect tolerant architectures. He has developed and maintained a strong relationship with the PIs and has been particularly supportive to the students on the team-facilitating internships and writing letters of recommendation, in addition to being engaged in their research. He also has been exemplary in his efforts to promote technology transfer within Intel.

Sanu Mathew of Intel has worked with Professor Vojin Oklobdziija for the last 10 years at the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of California at Davis. According to Dr.Oklobdzija, Dr. Mathew was instrumental in aiding the alignment of his research to industry problems and needs. Bart Zeydel, a former GRC student, considers Dr. Mathew to have served a critical role in his development as a engineering professional in addition his insights proved to be instrumental in transferring technology to the semiconductor industry.

Matthew Miller of Freescale Semiconductor has conducted weekly telephone conference calls with Dr. Gabor Temes and his students at Oregon State University. Matt's vast practical aspects of IC design and fabrication and experience in developing successful products played an important role in research of GRC student Kye Hyung Lee and the 2008 Distinquished Dissertation Award he received.

Wilman Tsai of Intel for work with Nonclassical CMOS Research Center located at the University of California at Santa Barbara under the direction of professors Susanne Stemmer, Paul McIntyre and Eric Garfunkel. Monthly teleconferences have led students to re-think their data and conductor additional experiments. Questions and comments by Dr. Tsai has encouraged the research team to stay focused on the important interests of the semiconductor community.

Christian Witt of GLOBALFOUNDRIES formerly with AMD is an Industry Liaison to professors Kathleen Dunn and Todd Austin and their research team at the University at Albany's CAIST program. The research is focused on understanding the properties of copper thin films as a function of various deposition parameters. Over the past year, he made frequent visits in person and is cited for "providing invaluable guidance and mentorship to both PI's and students" and for helping to get the project off to a successful start.