2006 Simon Karecki Award Presented

Rong Chen (center), Stanford University, and Ana and Richard Karecki

The 2006 Simon Karecki Award was presented to Rong Chen, Stanford University. The award is funded by the Simon Karecki Endowment and was presented by Dr. Farhang Shadman, director of the CEBSM, and Simon’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Karecki.

The following is the text from presentation made by Dr. Shadman.

This is the fifth presentation of the Simon Karecki Award. This Award is given in memory of Dr. Simon Karecki who was a student in this Center and an SRC Fellow. Friends and colleagues of Simon have come together to create the Simon Karecki Fellowship Fund in memory of an outstanding young man and researcher and as a way to encourage other talented young researchers in the pursuit of environmental research.

Before I present this year's Simon Karecki Award, I would like to recognize those members of the Advisory Board who are present today: Reed Content, AMD, Ken Aitcheson, BOC Edwards, Walter Worth, SEMATECH, and from SRC Tim Wooldridge and Ginny Wiggins. Rafael Reif, MIT, and Tim Dalton, IBM, also serve on the Advisory Board but were unable to be here today.

There were finalists in the 2006 competition that the selection committee felt strongly should be recognized. Both Felix Nelson from Cornell and Jun Yan from the University of Arizona are outstanding students, involved in research projects with great promise, and display a strong concern for the earth's environment. It is a great pleasure to present certificates to both Felix and Jun as finalists for the 2006 Simon Karecki Award.

On behalf of the ERC, SRC, and the Karecki Advisory Board, it is a great pleasure to present the 2006 Simon Karecki Award to Rong Chen.

Rong is pursuing her PhD in Chemistry at Stanford University. Her thesis project focuses on the development of a novel method for high-k dielectric gate stack fabrication. The goal of Rong's research project is to develop a method for area-selective atomic layer deposition of high-K gate dielectric and metal gate films using surface chemistry to control the ALD process. If successful, this project promises to reduce the number of processing steps in the fabrication of MOSFETs using high-K dielectrics and to eliminate the need to etch the high-K film. A reduction of the etch and cleaning processes is expected to have a positive ESH impact, and this work is partially supported by this Center. This is a challenging project for any Ph.D. student as it requires expertise in a number of distinct areas including organic chemistry, surface analysis, microelectronics processing, and electrical characterization. Rong has developed strong skills in each of these areas and has proven herself highly qualified to lead this research project.

Rong's interest in environmentally friendly technology began during her undergraduate years at the University of Science and Technology of China and she continues to pursue that interest. A notable project for Rong is her leadership in the "Surplus Chemical Program" at Stanford which provides a way for researchers to share surplus chemicals thereby decreasing the impact on the environment and saving costs by reducing the volume of chemicals being purchased and disposed of.

It is the decision of the Advisory Board that Rong Chen is eminently well qualified to receive the 2006 Simon Karecki Award. We are very fortunate to once again have Mr. and Mrs. Karecki with us today; it is a distinct honor for us to have them here, and we would like to ask them to present the 2006 Simon Karecki Award.