Jun 9, 2008

BMAS'08

The 2008 IEEE International Behavioral Modeling and Simulation Conference (BMAS 2008) will be held in San Jose, CA, on September 25-26, in conjunction with the 2008 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), in the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, at the heart of Silicon Valley.

BMAS addresses behavioral modeling and simulation for analog electronic circuits and systems. One of the main areas of topics is "Semiconductor Device Compact Modeling", which includes: " Compact device modeling lanuages and compilers", "Standard and new compact device models implemented in Verilog-A and VHDL-AMS", and "Compact device models for emerging technologies and topical issues (nano-devices, distributed thermal effect, leakaging issues, manufacturability, radiation effects, etc)".

The deadline for paper submission is June 30 2008.

For compact and behavioral modeling researchers, BMAS is no doubt a very interesting conference to attend, and for circuit designers, it is a very good complement to CCIC.

Edinburgh ESSDERC/ESSCIRC Workshop: 1st announcement for MOS-AK

I post the announcement I've got from Wladek Grabinski concerning the MOS-AK Workshop:

MOS-AK Workshop on compact modeling, organized for sixth subsequent time as an
integral part of the ESSDERC/ESSCIRC conference, aims to strengthen a network
and discussion forum among experts in the field, create an open platform for
information exchange related to compact/Spice modeling, bring people in the
compact modeling field together, as well as obtain feedback from technology
developers, circuit designers, and CAD tool vendors.

The topics of the Workshop cover all important aspects of compact model development,
implementation, deployment and standardization within the main theme - compact models
for mainstream CMOS/SOI circuit simulation. The specific workshop goal will be to
classify the most important directions for the future development of the compact
models and to clearly identify areas that need further research.

This workshop is designed for device process engineers (CMOS, SOI, BiCMOS, SiGe)
who are interested in device modeling; ICs designers (RF/IF/Analog/Mixed-Signal/SoC)
and those starting in that area as well as device characterization, modeling and
parameter extraction engineers. The content will be beneficial for anyone who needs
to learn what is really behind IC simulation in modern device models.

The technical program of MOS-AK Workshop consists of one day of tutorials given by
noted academic and industry experts, also a posters session is foreseen which will
be dedicated but not limited to the VHDL-AMS/Verilog-A model standardization:

http://www.mos-ak.org/edinburgh

The workshop program is open and you are welcome to submit poster to our poster
session where we will be focusing on different aspects of the Verilog-A compact
model standardization. Selected papers/posters will be recommended for further
published in the IJNM and SEE - MOS-AK publication partners.

Tentative list of the speakers already includes following names:
* Narain Arora, Silterra
* David M. Binkley, UNC Charlotte
* Matthias Bucher, TUC
* Christian Enz, CSEM
* Benjamin Iniguez, URV
* Tom J. Kazmierski, University of Southampton
* Ehrenfried Seebacher, austriamicrosystems
* Sadayuki Yoshitomi, TOSHIBA

The workshop program is open and you are welcome to submit poster to our poster
session where we will be focusing on different aspects of the Verilog-A compact
model standardization. Selected papers/posters will be recommended for further
published in the IJNM and SEE - MOS-AK publication partners.

--- Important dates:
--------------------
* 2nd announcement - July 19
* Final workshop program - Aug.19
* MOS-AK Workshop - Sept.19 at the Edinburgh International Conference
Centre (EICC)

Further information including recommended hotels and driving directions will be
posted at our web site, soon; please visit regularly: http://www.mos-ak.org

Let me remark that this is also a nice opportunity to visit Edinburgh (see these
links 1 and 2), and make some whisky tasting (see the links 1 and 2)!

Jun 4, 2008

Graduate Student Meeting on Electronic Engineering

The Graduated Student Meeting on Electronic Engineering (formerly Nanoelectronics and Photonics Systems Workshop), has been an annual event, created and organized by the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), in Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain) since 2003. It consists of two days of plenary talks given by invited prestigious researchers (from different countries) about selected topics related to electronic engineering and two poster sessions were PhD students in this field will present their work.

This Graduated Student Meeting has become a very useful forum for PhD students and researchers in the field of Electronic Engineering. The present edition will take place in June 19th and 20th.

This year, the Graduated Student Meeting is being sponsored by the NANOSIL European Network of Excellence. One of the invited speakers, Prof. Sorin Cristoloveanu (IMEP-INP Grenoble, France), is one of the leading authorities in the field of SOI technology and characterization. His talk is entitled "Selected Characterization Techniques for SOI Materials and Devices"

Another invited speaker, Prof. Antonio Cerdeira (CINVESTAV, Mexico City) will conduct a lecture on "Compact Model for Symmetric Double-Gate MOSFETS"
Prof Cerdeira has a long experience and outstanding publicactions in compact model and every year spends several months as an invited researcher in the Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

Both Prof. Cristoloveanu and Prof. Cerdeira have been invited as Distinguished Lecturers of the Electron Devices Society of the IEEE.

Other talks will address photonic crystals (Dr D Gerace), dynamical systems (Dr B Robert) and nanorods (Dr C Blackman).

Awards for the best posters in two categories: one category for Master students and another category for Doctoral Students.

2-pages abstracts corresponding to poster presentations and plenary talks will be published in the Proceedings. The deadline for abstracts reception is June 11th.

Tarragona is located in the south of Catalonia, in the northeast corner of the Iberian Peninsula.
Tarraco (the Roman name for Tarragona) was one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire. On 30 November 2000, the UNESCO committee officially declared the Roman archaeological complex of Tàrraco a World Heritage Site. This recognition is intended to help ensure the conservation of the monuments, as well as to introduce them to the broader international public.

In June the weather is warm enough to go to the beaches in or around Tarragona, but comfortable enough to walk and do sightseeing in the city. Thanks to its Mediterranean climate, its clean beaches with fine and gloden sand, and its singular artistic and architectural heritage, Tarragona is one of the most important tourism hubs in Europe.

I encourage Ph D students to send posters and attend this interesting Meeting!

Jun 3, 2008

Adieu Electronics: The End is Near (Perhaps Nearer than You Think)

I've been reading a very interesting post in Electronics Design, Strategy, News. The author, Steve Leibson, says that it seems we're running out of some of the necessary elements in semiconductor fabrication... Have a look at the post, and don't miss the comments....

In any case, it seems that this is a very good moment to be developing models for new devices! :-)

May 28, 2008

TNT 2008

The 2008 Trends in NanoTechnology Conference (TNT 2008) will be held in Oviedo (Spain) from September 1 to 5 2008.

The goal of this event is to present a broad range of current research in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology as well as related policies (European Commission, etc.) or other kind of initiatives (iNANO, FinNano, GDR-E, etc.). Topics are all aspects related to nanotechnology and nanoelectronics, including "Theory and modelling at the nanoscale".

The deadline for submission of abstracts for oral presentation is May 28 2008. The deadline for submission of abstracts for poster presentation is July 31 2008.

TNT2008 proceedings will be published in collaboration with Wiley VCH in a special issue of the journal "physica status solidi (c)".

The publication of the TNT2008 special issue is scheduled for March 2009.

The best manusccripts from the scientific point of view may be selected by the Editors for publication in "physica status solidi (a)" or "physica status solidi - rapid research letters", following a double peer-review process.

The venue of TNT 2008 will be the Auditorium Principe Felipe in Oviedo.

There is an excellent social programme, and the chance to taste the delicious Asturian cuisine, with the Asturian Cider.

IEDM'08

The 2008 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) will be held in the Hilton San Francisco Hotel in San Francisco, CA, from December 15 to 17 2008.

IEDM is the top conference in the field of electron devices. It is of course the most competitive one. Only truly outstanding papers are accepted. It is highly recommended that experimental results are shown, also some good simulation papers can be also accepted.

Two short courses will be held on Sunday, december 14: 22 nm Technology and More than Moore: Technologies for Functional Diversification.

This year there will also be plenary presentations by Peter Fromherz of Max Planck Institute; Tatsuo Saga from Sharp; Stefan K. Lai from Ovonyx, Inc.

Deadline for abstract submissions is June 27 2008 at 5.00 pm Pacific Standard Time.

Topics include all aspects related to electron devices, grouped in several areas:

-CMOS DEVICES & TECHNOLOGY (CDT)
-
CHARACTERIZATION, RELIABILITY and YIELD (CRY)
-
DISPLAYS, SENSORS, AND MEMS (DSM)
-
MEMORY TECHNOLOGY (MT)
-
MODELING AND SIMULATION (MS)
-
PROCESS TECHNOLOGY (PT)
-
QUANTUM, POWER, AND COMPOUND SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES (QPC)
-
SOLID STATE AND NANOELECTRONIC DEVICES (SSN)

This year the area of Modeling and Simulation (MS) explicitly includes "
physical and compact models for devices and interconnects". And it is said "Submissions should advance the art of modeling and simulation or apply existing techniques to gain new insights into devices".

If you have important results to show, I vively recommend to send an abstract to IEDM. It is the best place to present them, and to discuss them with the top people. Even if your abstract is rejected, or if you do not have any new results to show, I encourage researchers to attend IEDM, including compact modeling researchers.

May 23, 2008

OSC'08

The 2008 Organic Semiconductor Conference (OSC-08) will take place in Frankfort (Germany), from September 28 to October 1 2008. The conference will be held in the Congress Centre, at the Frankfort Messe.

OSC-08 includes three tracks with presentations by invited speakers plus one track with peer review papers, a poster session, and also an exhibition of leading organic semiconductor technology companies, as well as an exhibitor forum.

Topics include all aspects related to development, manufacturing and investment in organic semiconductor technologies and organic electronics. Besides, this year, for the first time OSC-08 will also cover carbon nanotubes, graphenes and fullerenes.

The deadline for review paper submission is May 25 2008.

The invited speakers come from both academia and industry. Among them, there are very prestigious researchers such as Hagen Klauk (Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research), Karlheinz Bock (Fraunhofer IZM), Takao Someya (University of Tokyo), Edzer Huitema (Polymer Vision), or Jan Genoe (IMEC).