Ghavam G. Shahidi (born 1959) is an

Iranian-American Iranian Americans are United States citizens or nationals who are of Iranian ancestry or who hold Iranian citizenship. Iranian Americans are among the most highly educated people in the United States. They have historically excelled in busine ...

electrical engineer and IBM Fellow. He is the director of Silicon Technology at the

IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. The center comprises three sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, U.S., 38 miles (61 km) north of New York City, Albany, New York and with ...

. He is best known for his pioneering work in

silicon-on-insulator In semiconductor manufacturing, silicon on insulator (SOI) technology is fabrication of silicon semiconductor devices in a layered silicon–insulator–silicon substrate, to reduce parasitic capacitance within the device, thereby improving perfo ...

(SOI)

complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...

(CMOS) technology since the late 1980s.

Career

He studied electrical engineering at MIT, where he wrote a PhD thesis on "velocity overshoot in deeply scaled

MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...

s" (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors), under supervision of Professor Dimitri A. Antoniadis. A 60nanometer

silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic luster, and is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic tab ...

(metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) was fabricated by Shahidi with Antoniadis and Henry I. Smith at MIT in 1986. The device was fabricated using

X-ray lithography X-ray lithography is a process used in semiconductor device fabrication industry to selectively remove parts of a thin film of photoresist. It uses X-rays to transfer a geometric pattern from a mask to a light-sensitive chemical photoresist, or ...

. Shahidi joined IBM Research in 1989, where he initiated and subsequently led the development of

(SOI)

(CMOS) technology at IBM. It was called the SOI Research Program, which he led at the

. Since then, he was the chief architect of SOI technology at IBM, leading the development of high-performance CMOS and SOI technologies at

IBM Microelectronics IBM had a microelectronics division from the 1960s until 2015. History In 2002, IBM has cut 1500 jobs in their microelectronics division. Sale In February 2014, a source familiar with the matter has said to The Wall Street Journal that IBM wa ...

. He made fundamental contributions to SOI technology, from materials research to the development of the first commercially viable devices. He was supported by his boss

Bijan Davari Bijan Davari (born September 16, 1954) is an Iranian-American engineer. He is an IBM Fellow and Vice President at IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center, Yorktown Hts, NY. His pioneering work in the miniaturization of semiconductor devices change ...

, who believed in the technology and supported Shahidi's team. He was a key figure in making SOI CMOS technology a manufacturable reality and enabling the continued

miniaturization Miniaturization ( Br.Eng.: ''Miniaturisation'') is the trend to manufacture ever smaller mechanical, optical and electronic products and devices. Examples include miniaturization of mobile phones, computers and vehicle engine downsizing. In ele ...

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-sc ...

. Early SOI technology had a number of problems with manufacturing, modeling, circuits, and reliability, and it was not clear that it could offer performance gains over established technologies. In the early 1990s, he demonstrated a novel technique of combining

epitaxial overgrowth and chemical mechanical polishing to prepare device-quality SOI material for fabricating devices and simple circuits, which led to IBM expanding its research program to include SOI substrates. He was also the first to demonstrate the power-delay advantage of SOI CMOS technology over traditional bulk CMOS in

microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circu ...

applications. He overcame barriers preventing the

semiconductor industry The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconduct ...

's adoption of SOI, and was instrumental in driving SOI substrate development to the quality and cost levels suitable for mass-production. This led to the first commercial use of SOI in mainstream CMOS technology. SOI was first commercialized in 1995, when Shahidi's work on SOI convinced John Kelly, who ran IBM's server division, to adopt SOI in the

AS/400 The IBM AS/400 (Application System/400) is a family of midrange computers from IBM announced in June 1988 and released in August 1988. It was the successor to the System/36 and System/38 platforms, and ran the OS/400 operating system. Lower-cost ...

line of server products, which used 220 nm CMOS with copper metallization SOI devices. In early 2001, he used SOI to developed a low-power

RF CMOS RF CMOS is a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuit (IC) technology that integrates radio-frequency (RF), analog and digital electronics on a mixed-signal CMOS (complementary MOS) RF circuit chip. It is widely used in modern wire ...

device, resulting in increased radio frequency. Later that year, IBM was set to introduce

130 nanometer The 130 nanometer (130 nm) process refers to the level of semiconductor process technology that was reached in the 2000–2001 timeframe, by most leading semiconductor companies, like Intel, Texas Instruments, IBM, and TSMC. The origin of the 1 ...

CMOS SOI devices with copper and

low-κ dielectric In semiconductor manufacturing, a low-κ is a material with a small relative dielectric constant (κ, kappa) relative to silicon dioxide. Low-κ dielectric material implementation is one of several strategies used to allow continued scaling of micr ...

for the back end, based on Shahidi's work. His work resulted in the qualification of multiple CMOS SOI technologies and their transfer to manufacturing; establishment of design infrastructure; and the first mainstream use of SOI. He remained with IBM Microelectronics as the director of high-performance logic development until 2003. He then moved back to IBM's Watson's Laboratory as the Director of Silicon Technology. As director of silicon technology at IBM Research, he was researching

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

technology in the early 2000s. In 2004, he announced plans for IBM to commercialize lithography based on light filtered through water, and then X-ray lithography within the next several years. He also announced that his team were investigating 20 new

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

materials. Shahidi received the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

J J Ebers Award The J. J. Ebers Award was established in 1971 to foster progress in electron devices. It commemorates Jewell James Ebers, whose contributions, particularly to transistors, shaped the understanding and technology of electron devices. It is present ...

in 2006, for his "contributions and leadership in the development of Silicon-On-Insulator CMOS technology". He is currently the director of Silicon Technology at the

in Yorktown Heights, New York.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shahidi, Ghavam American people of Iranian descent American electronics engineers Iranian electrical engineers Iranian electronics engineers Living people Fellow Members of the IEEE Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni IBM employees IBM Fellows Iranian expatriate academics 1959 births