Speakers from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, the semiconductor foundry that is wholly-owned by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company – shared innovative semiconductor technologies with microsystems experts at the GLOBALFOUNDRIES Colloquium, held recently at Masdar Institute.
The day-long seminar, which was sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) and hosted by Masdar Institute, featured presentations on six areas of semiconductor technology and a tour of Masdar Institute’s research labs and cleanroom fabrication facility.
“It is very significant that the Masdar Institute has been selected to host such a colloquium on the future trends and technology roadmap in the semiconductor industry,” said Dr. Ibrahim (Abe) Elfadel, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
“Masdar Institute has the largest semiconductor and microsystems program in the UAE with more than 90% of its research funded by external sources. Holding this forward-looking colloquium at Masdar Institute is a testimony to the reputation and visibility that the institute has already achieved in the highly-competitive semiconductor and microsystems research area. The distinguished speakers from GLOBALFOUNDRIES shared with the Masdar Institute faculty, staff and students their unique perspectives on several technology and integrated-circuit areas that are at the forefront of global semiconductor research,” Dr. Elfadel added.
The GLOBALFOUNDRIES representatives presented research in the areas of fully-depleted silicon on insulator (FD-SOI), radio frequency microelectromechanical systems (RF MEMS), power devices, integrated photonics and ferroelectrics.
For two days following the colloquium, focused technical workshops were held on campus with participants from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Masdar Institute, Khalifa University, UAE University, Abu Dhabi University, and New York University – Abu Dhabi.
The colloquium and subsequent workshops served to bring highly-skilled research teams from around Abu Dhabi together, to share expertise and discuss research opportunities to help facilitate industry-relevant collaborative research projects in the area of microsystems. Such collaborations could significantly bolster the UAE’s nascent semiconductor industry.
“Aside from the extensive networking and deep technical discussions that this colloquium has generated, we hope that specific collaboration opportunities will materialize for our faculty that will associate them with their counterparts at GLOBALFOUNDRIES in industry-relevant, cutting-edge research and development projects. Such academia-industry collaboration has been one of the hallmarks of Masdar Institute’s microsystems program, and I certainly hope that it will continue be so for the foreseeable future,” Dr. Elfadel shared.
Erica Solomon
News and Features Writer
27 January 2016
