Call for ICREA Senior Research Positions in Catalonia

ICREA (Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies) has published a Call for 25 Senior Research positions in Catalonia (Spain).

The successful candidates will have PERMANENT CONTRACTS and can work, as "ICREA Senior Researchers", at universities or research centers in Catalonia. They can choose the institution where they can work. Usually, Catalan institutions are very happy to have ICREA Senior Researchers, so they use to accept the candidate with pleasure.


ICREA Senior Researcher positions are very prestigeous at international level. The selection procedure is tough. Only very strong candidates with excellent leadership capabilities and an outstanding research record will be considered. It is recommended that the candidates have previously led big or ambitious research projects.

The salaries will be in line with those paid in Catalan universities for full professors. They are very good salaries. ICREA research professors will be subject to an evaluation of their research progress and general performance after a three-year period and subsequently every five years. The evaluations will be carried out by external evaluation committees that will assess scientific production as well as research activity. A positive evaluation will lead to a salary increase. So, salaries can be even better.

The candidates must submit:

1) A single .pdf file (maximum 4 Mb) containing the candidate's CV in English.

2) Two reference letters in English in .pdf or .doc format.

3) An expression of interest document from the host institution(s).

The candidate must directly contact each institution (university or research centre in Catalonia) that he/she is interested in and obtain the institution's acceptance. The host institution's expression of interest form must be downloaded directly by the institution using the link provided by the applicant. At the link, the institution will find the information needed to submit the form (both electronically and by post). The form must be received by ICREA before 2:00pm (local time) on Thursday, 16 April 2009.

The candidate may seek acceptance at more than one institution. In this case each institution must submit a separate expression of interest form to ICREA (both electronically and by post).

ALL THE DOCUMENTS MUST BE SUBMITTED IN ENGLISH. KNOWLEDGE OF THE CATALAN NOR THE SPANISH LANGUAGE ARE NECESSARY TO OBTAIN SUCH A POSITION.

Well, if a senior researcher in semiconductor device modelling is interested in applying for one of this position, I will be happy to host him/her in my University (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, in Tarragona, not far from Barcelona), in the Department of Electronic Engineering. We are the most powerful group in Catalonia in the area of device modelling, and one of the strongets teams in Europe in compact modeling. We participate in several European projects and we are leading the first European project on Compact Modeling. Besides, I obtained this year the ICREA Academia Award, a new award granted by ICREA to the best researchers working in Catalan universities.

So, if you are an outstanding researcher working on semiconductor device physics or modelling and if you are interested in those permanent, please contact me at:

benjamin.iniguez@urv.cat

I will be very happy to make the expression of interest from my institution!!!

Why not a permanent job as a senior researcher in a place with Tarragona, with a comfortable Mediterranean climate, with a very nice and interesting city life, with beaches and mountains, close to Barcelona but much cheaper, and working in a very strong research group, with young and motivated researchers?

International Conference on Organic Electronics'09

I copy the e-mail from Bill Eccleston, announcing the ICOE'09:

ICOE09 STOP PRESS

The Final Call for abstracts for ICOE(09) runs from 2^nd March to 27^th March 09 at Liverpool University. PhD postgrads come free. The conference runs from 15^th to 18^th June. There are special offers on Easyjet for flights to Liverpool: do your booking soon. The award winning website is at http://www.icoe09.com/ and includes hotel details. It includes the world famous Adelphi Hotel of Titanic fame at the conference rate where the Conference Dinner will be held. The estimated number of abstracts is estimated to be 17% higher than last year so overall acceptance rate is likely to be lower. The cut-off point is likely to be before the final deadline. Some oral presentations are reserved for the second call. There will be up to 50 poster places.

Among the invited talks are

Richard Friend (Cambridge): PV

Stephen Choe (Princeton) : nanoimprint

Jan Genoe (IMEC): Circuits and rfid

Jiro Kasahara ( just out of Sony)

Plus 6 others which will appear on the website with abstracts soon.

MOS-AK/GSA merge

In January 2009, GSA merged its efforts with MOS-AK, a well-known industry compact modeling volunteer group primarily focused in Europe, to re-activate its Modeling Working Group. This working group will help to create a smooth compact modeling interface between the technology (CMOS fabrication) and the IC design. For more information on this working group, contact Chelsea Boone or Wladek Grabinski

visit: EDA/Design Working Groups

MIXDES'09

I'd like to kindly remember you that the MIXDES Conference deadline is approaching, and that they have a special session on Compact Modelling... I paste here the relevant parts of the email from the Organizing Committee:

Due to some requests and to make this schedule less tight we would like to extend the deadline by one week, thus the paper the paper registrations and file uploads ready for scientific reviews should be completed till March 8th, 2009. Please note that the files for registered papers can be later updated till the final papers deadline (May 18th).

As the organising committee is willing to start reviewers assignment at the very beginning of March, I would like to kindly ask you to proceed with papers' basic data registration (the title, keywords, preliminary abstract) as soon as they are ready. It will be very helpful for us with the assignments. The file uploads can be completed till the deadline.

Spring MOS-AK Meeting at IHP in Frankfurt (Oder) // 2nd announcement

I post the mail from Wladek Grabinski:

Note that the MOS-AK is in Frankfurt oder, NOT in Frankfurt.... (see the distance in this gmaps link)


Please visit the MOS-AK/IHP Meeting web page
  http://www.mos-ak.org/frankfurt_o/
with updated:

* April 2-3 meeting agenda
* Driving directions and recommended hoter
* New tentative list of the MOS-AK presenters

To register, use available Free On-line Registration form:
  http://www.mos-ak.org/frankfurt_o/pre_register.php

*Important dates
   * Final workshop program  - March.21
   * MOS-AK Workshop         - April 2-3

* MOS-AK/IHP Committee
   * Prof. Tillack Bernd, IHP; Meeting Chair
   * Prof. Benjamin Iniguez Technical Program Chair
   * Dr. Rene Scholz, IHP; Technical Program Chair
   * Richter Christine, IHP; Executive Assistant
   * Wladek Grabinski, GMC Suisse; Workshop Manager

Variations in Analog Design

I've just seen a press release in EDN about a new tool for analysis of the impact of parametric variations on the performance of circuits, specially oriented to analog design. This new tool from Solido Design Automation seems a quite potent toolbox, very related to what you can do with UTMOST, but more oriented to integration in a simulation environment. This tool promises to be able to determine the best corners from foundry data, run sensitivity analysis, etc....

If anybody has tested it, I'd like to read first-hand opinions....

Rising salaries in technological sector in 2009?

This is not a post closely related to compact modeling, but I feel that it is relevant... I've read an article in EDN, and it seems that the technological sector is a nice one to be during this crisis. In fact, they say that the unemployment ratio is halt that of the general population, and that salaries are actually growing... Incredible, isn't it? Maybe they hint at a possible explanation, because it seems that most of the people are trying to improve their situation, and that can lead to an increase of the mean salary, since the employers must keep the better...

Anyway, the full article is here... What do you think?