Academia Sinica academician wins US tech award

2016/01/05

An academician of Taipei City-based Academia Sinica was recently named a recipient of the prestigious U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his contributions to revolutionizing semiconductor technologies.

Hu Chen-ming, a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and former chief technology officer with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., will be honored by U.S. President Barack Obama along with seven other winners this year at the White House.

An alumnus of National Taiwan University, Hu earned his doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley in the early 1970s. He was elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1997, and won the prestigious Phil Kaufman Award for electronic design automation in 2013.

Hu is widely considered a microelectronics visionary, with his BSIM series transistor models setting global standards for simulating microcircuits since 1996. It is estimated that microchips worth hundreds of billions of dollars have been produced using the models, which he provided for free to the industry.

In particular, Hu’s revolutionary 3-D transistor structure FinFET utilizes significant size reductions and power savings to facilitate scaling of microchips. The structure is used in computer servers, handheld devices and other high-performance applications.

During a career spanning four decades, Hu published five books and more than 900 research papers. He also helmed or helped build leading companies in the industry, as well as trained hundreds of graduate students.

Created in 1980 by statute and administered for the White House by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Patent and Trademark Office, the medal recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to the America’s competitiveness and helped strengthen its technological workforce.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=240865&ctNode=2194&mp=9)