RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.- Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world’s leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, today named well-known physicist Dr. Steven Hillenius as vice president for the consortium’s community of 23 companies and partners and 100 universities worldwide. His patents cover techniques that are used in virtually every integrated circuit manufactured today.

“This is a great time to be an innovator and the perfect time to help guide SRC. Companies, governments and universities across the planet are stepping up their efforts to collaborate,” Dr. Hillenius said of his new position. “Researchers who have the courage to pursue their ideas are in high demand. I’m very impressed with SRC and its opportunity to help direct some of the world’s best tech talent for the benefit of humankind.”

For more than 20 years, Dr. Hillenius has been a global leader in research and patent success for high-performance semiconductor structures and devices. Prior to joining SRC, Dr. Hillenius headed influential technology development and collaborative interactions for Agere Systems and Bell Laboratories. He managed partnerships and joint development programs with major industry players that included NEC, ST Microelectronics, TSMC and Chartered Semiconductor.

"Dr. Hillenius is a major-league researcher whom the industry is lucky to have join SRC's senior management team" said Larry Sumney, CEO and president of SRC. “His perspectives and accomplishments distinguish him at the top of the field of semiconductor research and that’s the kind of resource that the industry and governments expect from their investments in SRC.”

As the technological demands of the semiconductor industry have rapidly advanced during the past 30 years, Dr. Hillenius has led several key developments in the field. His team at Bell Laboratories was the first in the industry to produce 60nm transistors, conducted much of the early materials innovation on high-k gate dielectrics and demonstrated novel three-dimensional device structures.

His awards include the 2005 Agere Innovation Award, given to the Agere inventor of the most commercially significant patent – Planar Isolation Technique for Integrated Circuits, which allows transistors to be packed more closely and significantly increases their density on an integrated circuit. Dr. Hillenius also received the AT&T Patent Recognition Award in 1992, similarly presented for that year’s most commercially significant patent – CMOS Integrated Circuit Technology Utilizing Slow and Fast Diffusing Donor Ions to Form the N-Well, which improves the electrical isolation within semiconductors to allow lower power consumption. He holds eight patents that resulted from his device and process research and has published more than 60 technical papers.

Dr. Hillenius has served in leadership roles in several professional, research and industrial standards organizations. He is a past president of the IEEE Electron Devices Society and a current board member of the IEEE. He was an organizer and contributor to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors for several years. He was elected an IEEE Fellow in 1996. He has been involved with SRC as a university liaison, participating member of its science advisory groups, technical advisory board and board of directors.

Dr. Hillenius' record of guidance and support to SRC and its members, in a variety of advisory roles, reflects the kind of commitment to the industry that has helped to make SRC into an indispensable resource for the advancement of semiconductor technology,” said Hans Stork, chairman of the SRC Board of Directors and chief technology officer for Texas Instruments. “His new role on the senior management team will serve to further the influence and pace of the SRC in benefiting the global chip industry.”

Dr. Hillenius received his B.S. in Physics from the University of Delaware in 1973 and his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Virginia in 1979.

The naming of Dr. Hillenius to replace Dr. Ralph Cavin, who is retiring from the SRC leadership team at the end of this year, comes at a point of growing momentum for the consortium. Last month, SRC announced Applied Materials as its newest member. Several other strategic members of the semiconductor community are in discussion about joining SRC.

About the SRC: As the pioneer of collaborative research for the semiconductor industry, SRC’s goal is to define common industry needs, invest in and manage the research that would expand the industry knowledge base and attract premier students to help innovate and transfer semiconductor technology to the commercial industry. Established in 1982, SRC is based in Research Triangle Park, NC, and drives long-term semiconductor research contracts on behalf of its participating members: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Applied Materials, Inc., Axcelis Technologies, Inc., Cadence Design Systems, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Intel Corp., LSI Logic Corp., Mentor Graphics Corp., The Mitre Corp., Novellus Systems, Inc., Rohm and Haas Electronic Materials and Texas Instruments Corp. Strategic partners are SEMATECH, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International and Semiconductor Industry Association. SRC also seeks to leverage funding from global government agencies.