Chenming Hu (; born 12 July 1947), also known by his English name Calvin Hu, is a Taiwanese-American electronic engineer who specializes in

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre ...

. He is

TSMC Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC or Taiwan Semiconductor) is a Taiwanese multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. It is one of the world's most valuable semiconductor companies, the world' ...

Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the electronic engineering and computer science department of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

. In 2009, the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

described him as a “microelectronics visionary … whose seminal work on metal-oxide semiconductor MOS

reliability Reliability, reliable, or unreliable may refer to: Science, technology, and mathematics Computing * Data reliability (disambiguation), a property of some disk arrays in computer storage * Reliability (computer networking), a category used to des ...

and device modeling has had enormous impact on the continued scaling of electronic devices”.

Early life and education

Hu was born in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

on July 12, 1947. When he was an infant, his family fled to Taiwan during the

Great Retreat The Great Retreat (), also known as the retreat from Mons, was the long withdrawal to the River Marne in August and September 1914 by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Fifth Army. The Franco-British forces on the Western F ...

. He graduated from

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; zh, t=國立臺灣大學, poj=Kok-li̍p Tâi-oân Tāi-ha̍k, p=, s=) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. Founded in 1928 during Taiwan under J ...

in 1968 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

(B.S.) in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, then completed graduate studies in the United States, where he earned a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

(M.S.) in 1970 and his Ph.D. in 1973 from the

, under professor John Roy Whinnery. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "Nematic Liquid Crystal Optical Waveguides". After receiving his doctorate, Hu became an

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT).

Career

Currently professor emeritus, he has been a professor of

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1976.Chenming Hu
Forbes.com. Archived August 10, 2008. He has made significant contributions in microelectronics research. He was one of the developers of the

FinFET A fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) is a multigate device, a MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) built on a substrate where the gate is placed on two, three, or four sides of the channel or wrapped around the chann ...

, a multi-gated

MOSFET upright=1.3, Two power MOSFETs in amperes">A in the ''on'' state, dissipating up to about 100 watt">W and controlling a load of over 2000 W. A matchstick is pictured for scale. In electronics, the metal–oxide–semiconductor field- ...

device, and was among the creators of the Berkeley Short-Channel IGFET Model family of MOSFETs. Since the 1980s, Hu has written extensively on the

of the silicon oxide layer in semi-conductors. Hu was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

in 1997 for contributions to the modeling integration-circuit devices and to the reliability and performance of VLSI systems. Between 2001 and 2004 Hu was the chief technology officer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. He has sat on the board of several companies, including Inphi Corporation, FormFactor, MoSys and SanDisk; he was chairman of the board of Celestry Design Solutions, which he founded.

Awards and honors

*1997: elected to the

United States National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the ...

*1997: IEEE Jack Morton Award, "for outstanding contributions to semiconductor devices and technology" *2002: IEEE Solid-State Circuits Award (for developing the first international standard transistor model BSIM) *2002: IEEE Paul Rappaport Award *2009:

IEEE Jun-ichi Nishizawa Medal In 2002, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) added a new award to its already existing program of awards. Each year, one or more nominees are honored with a medal in the name of Jun-ichi Nishizawa, considered to be the ' ...

, "for technical contributions to MOS device reliability, scaling of CMOS and compact device modeling"Mark LaPedus (June 17, 2009)
Hu receives IEEE award
''EE Times''. Archived July 9, 2016. *2011: Asian American Engineer of the year award, *2011: National Taiwan University Distinguished Alumni Award, *2011: Semiconductor Industry Association Award, *2013: Phil Kaufman Award for Distinguished Contributions to EDA, *2014:

National Medal of Technology and Innovation The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the president of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...

, given at the White House by

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

in 2016. *2015: SEMI Award for North America, for the

BSIM BSIM (Berkeley Short-channel IGFET Model) refers to a family of MOSFET transistor models for integrated circuit design. It also refers to the BSIM group located in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the Unive ...

transistor family. *2016: Pan Wen Yuan Award, by the

Industrial Technology Research Institute The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI; ) is a technology research and development institution in Taiwan. It was founded in 1973 and is headquartered in Hsinchu, Hsinchu City, Taiwan, with branch offices in the United States, U.S., ...

. *2020:

IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, and is presented to an individual or team of up to three who have made exceptional contri ...

Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hu, Chenming 1947 births Living people Electrical engineering academics Taiwanese emigrants to the United States UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Taiwanese people from Beijing Chinese emigrants to the United States Engineers from Beijing IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Taiwanese expatriates in the United States American people of Taiwanese descent National Taiwan University alumni