SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
TSUNG-YUNG JONATHAN CHANG & CHRISTOPH HEER
Dr. Tsung-Yung Jonathan Chang is a TSMC Fellow and Senior Director leading memory IP development at TSMC. He is responsible for SRAM DTCO and memory IP development for advance technology nodes. Before joining TSMC, Dr. Chang was a principal engineer at Intel responsible for cache development for Enterprise server processors. He received B.S. degree from National Taiwan University, and M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University, all in electrical engineering. Dr. Chang is a fellow of IEEE, had served as the memory subcommittee chair from for ISSCC, TPC members of ISSCC, VLSI, associate and guest editors of Journal of Solid-State Circuits, and associate editor of IEEE Trans on VLSI. Dr. Chang has published more than 90 technical papers in IEEE conferences or journals and held twenty-five patents in embedded memory design.
Christoph Heer is heading the European Field Technical Support team of TSMC. His team is supporting the complete TSMC foundry offering from quarter micron down to actual leading edge technologies in N2 and A16 with design kit enablement and hands-on training.
Before joining TSMC mid of 2023 Christoph spent 12 years with Intel Mobile Communications and the Autonomous Solutions Division. He was the engineering manager of the Intel sites in Neubiberg/Munich.
Previous engagements were 11 years with Infineon Technologies and 4 years with Siemens Research. All senior management roles in the domain of advanced circuit design and IP provision.
Semiconductors at the Core of AI, HPC, and Edge Devices: Powering a New Era of Technological Innovation
Tsung-Yung Jonathan Chang (Senior Director TSMC, NL)
Christoph Heer (Head of Field Technical Support and Marketing TSMC EMEA, NL)
Tuesday, 9 September
16:40 - 18:40 (timing to be confirmed)
room TBA
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Semiconductors have been instrumental in transforming human life, driving rapid advancements across numerous domains. The proliferation of personal computers, the internet, mobile devices, and high-performance computing (HPC) servers has introduced immense computing power and connectivity into everyday lives. As we progress into the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced semiconductor technologies are emerging as essential enablers, providing the computational power, memory capacity, and data transfer bandwidth required for AI applications. Innovations such as FinFET, nanosheet transistors, and 3D stacking are spearheading this technological evolution. Furthermore, specialized memory intellectual property (IP), including compute-in-memory architectures, is poised to significantly enhance power efficiency in AI systems. In the domain of specialty semiconductor technologies, embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) plays an increasingly critical role in microcontroller (MCU) devices, enabling system-level optimization, programmability, low power consumption, and non-volatility. The demand for eNVM in advanced technology nodes, particularly 2xnm and beyond, is being driven by applications such as smart IoT devices, automotive MCUs, security MCUs, and smart power management. Emerging memory technologies like MRAM and RRAM are positioned as promising alternatives to eFlash for 2xnm and beyond. These memories are built on back-end storage elements, compatible with CMOS logic processes, and require fewer additional process steps. However, these advanced eNVM technologies face critical challenges, including small read windows, high write currents, limited write endurance, and data retention issues. To address these challenges, design-technology co-optimization (DTCO) strategies play a pivotal role in advancing MRAM and RRAM. These strategies include smart write algorithms with process-temperature-location compensation, optimized sensing circuits for improved read performance, high-retention OTP-like write schemes, and other innovations. Through the application of these DTCO methodologies, both MRAM and RRAM have demonstrated exceptional manufacturability, competitive performance, power, and area (PPA), as well as robust reliability.
THOMAS RICHTER
Thomas Richter is Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Infineon Technologies in Dresden. Thomas Richter is a strong and proven leader with solid background and experience in the Semiconductor, Photovoltaic and Energy Storage industry. His career in the semiconductor industry started 30 years ago: he joined Siemens in 1995. Before returning to Infineon Dresden in 2022, he held various positions, including Vice President Frontend Wafer Fab at Bosch Reutlingen and Site and Manufacturing Manager at Melexis in Tessenderlo/Erfurt. Thomas Richter is a real expert in the fields of operations excellence, lean manufacturing, supply chain management and continuous improvement processes. He was born in 1974 in Chemnitz. Thomas Richter holds a diploma degree in microelectronics from the University of Applied Science in Zwickau.
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Smart Power Fab - A clear positioning of Infineon to strengthen semiconductor manufacturing in Europe
Thomas Richter (Senior Vice President & Managing Director, Infineon Technologies Dresden GmbH & Co. KG)
Tuesday, 9 September
16:40 - 18:40 (timing to be confirmed)
room TBA
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Infineon is expanding in Dresden in order to meet growing customer demand of semiconductor devices for renewable energies, efficient data centers, and electromobility. That will contribute to accelerating the trend to decarbonization and digitalization. With the Smart Power Fab, Infineon will roughly double its production capacity in Dresden. The core of the Smart Power Fab will focus on BCD, High Voltage CMOS and Si Power technologies. The interaction of power semiconductors and analog/mixed-signal components enables particularly energy-efficient and intelligent system solutions – hence the name Smart Power Fab.
Infineon Dresden will create a globally unique manufacturing environment for their highly flexible integrated high-volume production. With significantly increased product complexity and extensive system innovations, the Smart Power Fab will be unique in Europe and even worldwide in terms of the scope, flexibility and diversity of its innovative product portfolio. The future innovative product portfolio will include and address electrical vehicles, each kind of battery loading/charging, electrical energy transportation and transformation e.g. for solar energy, wind energy and any other electrical energy production, energy transmission and energy consumption at the consumer site. The investment in Dresden is part of the company’s strategy to reach CO2-neutrality by 2030. The Smart Power Fab sets new efficiency standards for the consumption of important resources such as energy and water. This has a positive impact on the ecological footprint of Infineon.
The semiconductors “Made in Dresden” are our contribution to making the future value chains of key European industries even more robust. Infineon's Smart Power Fab also further solidifies the position of Dresden and Silicon Saxony as Europe's largest semiconductor hub. While improving the resilience of EU in times of growing demand for semiconductors, this new fab will create several hundred additional high-value jobs and thus strengthen EU’s position in the global semiconductor industry. This major investment will also trigger additional engagements of suppliers and strengthen the regional competence cluster, including universities and scientific research.
ANDREIA CATHELIN
Andreia Cathelin started electrical engineering studies at the Polytechnic Institute of Bucarest, Romania and graduated with MS from the Institut Supérieur d’Electronique du Nord (ISEN), Lille, France in 1994. In 1998 and 2013 respectively, she received PhD and “habilitation à diriger des recherches” (French highest academic degree) from the Université de Lille 1, France.
Since 1998, she has been with STMicroelectronics, Crolles, France, now Advanced R&D Design Technical Director and Technology R&D Fellow. Her focus areas are in the design of RF/mmW/THz and ultra-low-power circuits and systems. She is currently leading the RF Affinity team transversal inside the company, which enables knowledge creation and breakthrough solutions in the field towards open innovation and business impact.
Andreia is very active in the IEEE community since more than 15 years, strongly implied with SSCS and its Adcom (2 terms up to 2022). She is a member of the VLSI Symposium Executive Committee and has been the TPC chair of ESSCIRC 2020 and 2021 in Grenoble, and General Co-Chair of ESSCIRC-ESSDERC 2023 in Lisbon. She is as well IEEE RFIC Symposium TPC member and has been for 10 years involved with ISSCC as RF subcommittee chair and then member of the Executive Committee. She is as well an active founding member of the IEEE SSCS Women in Circuits group.
Andreia has authored or co-authored 150+ technical papers and 14 book chapters, has co-edited the Springer book “The Fourth Terminal, Benefits of Body-Biasing Techniques for FDSOI Circuits and Systems” and has filed more than 40 patents. She is currently Associate Editor for TCAS-I and OJ-SSCS IEEE journals.
Andreia has been a recipient and co-recipient of several awards with ISSCC and RFIC. She is as well the winner of the 2012 STMicroelectronics Technology Council Innovation Prize, and has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Lund, Sweden, promotion of 2020.
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FD-SOI: Game changer in the IOT arena.
Our circuits change the world!
Andreia Cathelin (Technical Director Advanced R&D Design and Technology R&D Fellow, STMicroelectronics, FR)
Tuesday, 9 September
16:40 - 18:40 (timing to be confirmed)
room TBA
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This talk will bring the distinguished audience into the IoT land, presenting first the application fields, and then the integration challenges. We will then discuss about the FD-SOI CMOS technologies developed by STMicroelectronics in Europe, and how their particular features permit to tend towards the best-in-class energy efficiency and life time for such products, thanks to this technology opportunity. Sustainability aspects and implications will as well be discussed. We will demonstrate that technologists and IC designers can and should contribute to an overall carbon neutrality aspect over three axes: enable technologies that are energy-aware by construction, act for a system level global energy aware strategy and bring in circuit design solutions that always show 10x better energy reduction.
KARSTEN SCHÄFER
Karsten Schäfer serves as a director at Bosch, where he oversees the global sustainability program for semiconductors. In this role, he is dedicated to further reducing consumption and emissions in the manufacturing processes of ASICs, MEMS, and Power Devices.
Prior to his current position, Karsten led the MEMS300 program at the Bosch Fab in Dresden, which achieved a significant milestone by enabling the world’s first manufacturing of MEMS inertial sensors on 300mm wafers.
Karsten joined Bosch in 2015, transitioning from the G450C consortium at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, NY, where he was a Globalfoundries assignee focused on the development of device manufacturing on 450mm wafers. His extensive experience also includes nine years at Infineon Technologies / Qimonda in Dresden and three years with Globalfoundries in both Dresden and Malta, NY.
He holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering from HTWK Leipzig and Electrical Engineering from TU Dresden.​​
Pioneering Semiconductor manufacturing in Europe with MEMS300 and advance in sustainability worldwide
Karsten Schäfer (Director, Program Manager Sustainability Semiconductor Operations at Robert Bosch GmbH,DE)
Tuesday, 9 September
16:40 - 18:40 (timing to be confirmed)
room TBA
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MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) sensors serve as a critical interface between the analog and digital world. Recent advancements in manufacturing technologies are poised to facilitate further enhancements in both growth and performance metrics. Bosch, the global leader in MEMS sensors, initiated the development of manufacturing processes utilizing 300mm wafers as early as 2022. The semiconductor fabrication facility located in Dresden, Germany, has been designated as the pioneering site for these innovative efforts.
This presentation will elucidate the strategic considerations regarding potential locations for new production and development initiatives. We will highlight the advantages inherent in the semiconductor ecosystem within Europe, particularly in the context of addressing emerging challenges.
Sustainability is increasingly driving technological innovation, with governments implementing stricter environmental regulations and stakeholders—including customers and partners—demanding sustainable products and supply chains. Contemporary society places significant emphasis on the sustainability practices of employers. Furthermore, the pressing issue of climate change necessitates prompt and decisive action.
The semiconductor manufacturing sector possesses unique characteristics that require dedicated measures to advance in environmental sustainability.
This talk will bring valuable insights how these requirements are successfully addressed.