Let us rejoice in the combined IEEE worldwide activities of 39 technical societies and 8 interdisciplinary councils on one side of the IEEE coin, balanced with local sections and student chapters, bringing a physical presence of IEEE to local communities. By the way, one could argue that IEEE also has a 3rd leg into humanitarian activities.

These S/C span a great swathe from hardware to software, including electronic devices, solar/wind energy production, power transmission, control theory, image compression, signal processing, and computer architecture. One could say this moves from applied physics to applied math.

However, this talk drills down to focus mostly on one of these societies, the Electron Device Society (EDS), where the field of semiconductor materials and devices germinates and thrives.

So, with the USA's Chips and Science Act to onshore semiconductor chip manufacturing, what does this mean to you and your communities? First, the “Chips” portion supports semiconductor companies to build or expand domestic chip production. The “Science” portion aims to perform workforce development to populate those factories.

Sitting in Central Ohio, the new Intel Ohio site is being developed just 27 miles from the ECE Department. 3000 new jobs with 6-figure salaries are envisioned, not including co-located industry support.

Where will this new workforce come from and what do you need to do to prepare for your future? This talk aims to take a critical look at the opportunities before you in the semiconductor industry.

With time permitting and audience interest, some discussion in humanitarian roles IEEE plays will also be discussed.

Dr. Paul R. Berger is a Professor in Electrical & Computer Engineering at Ohio State University and Physics (by Courtesy). He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tampere University in Finland. He received the B.S.E. in engineering physics, and the M.S.E. and Ph.D. (1990) in electrical engineering, respectively, all from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Currently, Dr. Berger is actively working on quantum tunneling devices, printable semiconductor devices & circuits for IoT, bioelectronics, novel devices, novel semiconductors and applied physics.

Formerly, he worked at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (1990-’92) and taught at the University of Delaware in Electrical and Computer Engineering (1992-2000). In 1999, Prof. Berger took a sabbatical leave while working first at the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany and then moved on to Cambridge Display Technology, Ltd., Cambridge, United Kingdom. In 2008, Prof. Berger spent an extended sabbatical leave at IMEC (Interuniversity Microelectronics Center) in Leuven, Belgium while appointed as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Engineering, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Prof. Berger was also a Finnish Distinguished Professor (FiDiPro) at Tampere University of Technology (2014-2019), and he continues as a Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair in Information and Communications Technologies.

He has authored over 240 referred publications and presentations with another ~100 plenary, keynote, invited talks, 5 book sections and been issued 25 patents with 3 more pending from 60+ disclosures with a Google Scholar H-index of 35. Some notable recognitions for Dr. Berger were an NSF CAREER Award (1996), a DARPA ULTRA Sustained Excellence Award (1998), Lumley Research Awards (2006, 2011), a Faculty Diversity Excellence Award (2009) and Outstanding Engineering Educator for State of Ohio (2014). He has been on the Program and Advisory Committees of numerous conferences, including the IEDM, DRC, ISDRS, EDTM and IFETC meetings. He will be hosting the IFETC in ’21 as General Chair. He currently is the Chair of the Columbus IEEE EDS/Photonics Chapter and Faculty Advisor to Ohio State’s IEEE Student Chapter. In addition, he is an elected member-at-large to the IEEE EDS Board of Governors (19’-21’), where he is also Vice Present of Strategic Directions (20’-21’) and a member of the EDS Finance Committee.

He is an IEEE EDS Fellow (2011) and Distinguished Lecturer (since 2011), as well as a Senior member of the Optical Society of America. He has received .9M in USA funding as lead PI, with an additional M as Co-PI in USA and €8.8M in funding through his Finnish partnerships. Altogether, he has received ~.5M in research funding.

Abstract:

Microwave technology has applications in the pharmaceutical industry for drug extraction, sterilization, and creating dosage forms. Microwave-assisted extraction can be used to obtain medicinal components from plants and other materials for healthcare purposes.

BioMEMS [Biological Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems] and biomedical engineering have enabled the development of microwave-based devices for healthcare, such as wireless implants for monitoring intracranial pressure in patients with traumatic brain injury or hydrocephalus.

Metamaterials are used in designing antennas for healthcare applications. These metamaterial-based wearable antennas, like textile patch antennas, are crucial for wireless body-centric networks used in healthcare monitoring systems.

Going over details for the upcoming year plan, primarily involving the KiCad/Technical Workshops.