1998 Outstanding Industry Liaison Awards

Robert Aitken
Hewlett Packard
For 3 years, Mr. Aitken has collaborated with Professor Tracy Larrabee and her student, David Lavo, at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Recognized as pre-eminent in the field of fault diagnosis, Mr. Aitken focused on the UCSC program and guided it to early successes. Mr. Aitken is remarkable in his understanding of how to further the educational goals of students and the research while benefiting Hewlett-Packard. Mr. Aitken has almost certainly hastened David's progress toward his degree. In her nomination, Professor Larrabee wrote, "I think it is fascinating that while Rob has been protective of David and his educational experience, he has simultaneously succeeded in using David's time and his efforts very much to HP's advantage. I think of David's association with Rob as the very best that SRC mentorship has to offer to both the academic research program and the industry partner."

Laurie Beu
Motorola
Ms. Beu has been involved with Professor Rafael Reif and his students at MIT since their project began in 1994. Ms. Beu has been outstanding in her commitment to ensure that the work stays at the forefront of solutions being pursued by the industry. She arranged for both graduate students on the project to complete thesis research on-site at Motorola's Advanced Products Research and Development Laboratory, representing a commitment of heavy equipment use, hundreds of wafers, as well as the support of process engineers, technicians, and maintenance staff for a total of seven months. In addition to securing an outstanding level of support from Motorola, Ms. Beu has promoted the project to other companies, opening the door to collaborations with gas vendors and equipment manufacturers. Additionally, Ms. Beu was instrumental in arranging for a large equipment donation from Motorola that will ensure that the group will have the resources during the next few years to continue work in plasma etching that is applicable to the newest technology developments in manufacturing.

Martin Giles
Intel Corporation
Dr. Giles was honored in 1997 for his activities as a mentor at UT-Austin. This year, Dr. Giles is recognized for his work at the University of Florida with Professor Mark Law, where he worked very closely with a graduate student, Aaron Lilak, to develop a new boron diffusion model in conjunction with Lawrence Livermore National Labs. Dr. Giles coordinated interactions with the lab and taught Aaron a new input language. He also provided data from Intel to verify the model, helped Aaron write a highly regarded paper for the IEDM, and followed up by providing samples for further work.

The model has been used as an exploratory tool in Intel's newer technologies, and the understanding gained in this research has guided development of other models in Intel's proprietary simulator. The SRC constantly experiences the tension between asking universities for fundamentally new knowledge, while requesting a constant stream of short-term deliverables that are useful to industry. Martin Giles' creative approach illustrates that industry liaisons can help the SRC to reach both goals.

Effiong Ibok
Advanced Micro Devices
Since 1992, Dr. Ibok has worked with the program at North Carolina State University on metrology modeling for ultra thin dielectrics under Professors Wortman and Hauser. He arranged an internship for a key student, Khaled Ahmed, and worked closely with him for over eight months at AMD to develop an electrical model which takes into account quantum mechanical effects. Dr. Ibok provided test chips and associated process technology information, maintained regular discussions with Professors Hauser and Wortman, and arranged training and instructional programs for AMD engineering staff on the use of NCSU's electrical characterization method. These efforts aided NCSU in the development and validation of several key electrical models and test methods and benefited AMD tremendously.

In his nomination, Professor Wortman said, "He is an excellent scientist and engineer and often provides information and suggestions that would have been difficult to obtain otherwise. In particular, his background is in chemical engineering yet he mentors electrical engineering students. This cross-disciplinary team approach has been very valuable to the success of our programs."

Sungho Jin
Lucent Technologies
Dr. Jin has been a mentor to Leon Keer's research at Northwestern University on interface reliability studies since 1994. During his numerous visits to Northwestern he encourages ingenuity, innovation and the use of every available resource to achieve research goals. In fact, one of his presentations showed how something as mundane as candy could be used to fabricate solder joints of a unique geometry that could provide stress relief in an electronic package.

Early in the program, the Northwestern team had proposed to establish a database for two lead-free solders that would be useful for reliability modeling. After some investigation, it turned out that there were no such solders far enough along in development to be accepted by Industry. Dr. Jin advised the team which alloys were most likely to replace the current leaded solder, a choice which was approved by the other mentors on the project. Dr. Jin continues to provide valuable feedback on the significance of the research in meeting industry needs by suggesting that the team study the effect of size on the mechanical behavior of bulk solders to help extend their results to actual solder joints.

Alexander Liddle
Lucent Technologies
Since the beginning of 1997, Dr. Liddle has mentored the work of Professor Roxann Englestad at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Three SRC students wrote in support of his nomination, "While Alex should win the mentor award on his technical counseling, commitment to the students, and the quality of technology transfer, he has also set an example of character and balance to the students with whom he works. It has been inspiring to meet a scientist with such technical expertise that also has a sense of humor, integrity, and honest consideration for the people with whom he works and others."

Dr. Liddle has interacted closely with the students and researchers, appraising the research results and offering valuable suggestions to bridge the gap between industry and academia. Dr. Liddle has visited the university for thesis presentations, communicates directly with the students on at least a weekly basis, and maintains a strong commitment to help them excel in their academic growth as well as professional development.