IMEC today announced that its board of directors has named Luc Van den hove as IMEC's new President and Chief Executive Officer. Gilbert Declerck is elected as member of the Board of IMEC International. In addition, he will continue to serve IMEC as Executive Officer, concentrating on key governmental and industrial relations and on strategic advice. Changes will become effective on July 1, 2009.
Luc Van den hove has spent his entire career at IMEC, where he started as a team leader in silicide and interconnect technologies research. In 1988, he became manager of IMEC’s micro-patterning group (lithography, dry etching). As of 1998, he led as Vice President the Division of Silicon Process and Device Technology. Since 2007, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.
Anton De Proft, Chairman of IMEC’s Board, commented: “The board is excited to have Luc Van den hove as new CEO. Luc combines strong personal skills with experience, having served in several senior leadership roles at IMEC. He has been instrumental in bringing IMEC’s silicon scaling research program to a world-leading research partnership in semiconductor technology. We look forward to working closely together with him and his team.
We also want to thank Gilbert Declerck for his outstanding contribution to IMEC during his 10 year tenure as CEO. His achievements are stellar and his dedication, his hard work and his warm leadership have been inspirational to all of us in the board and to the whole IMEC organization.”
Luc Van den hove said: “It’s a great honor to manage one of the world's greatest research centers, with a proud history of 25 years of innovation and outstanding talent. Under Gilbert’s management, IMEC has grown into an internationally renowned institute with solid partnerships around the world. Since my start at IMEC, I have closely teamed with Gilbert and I’m looking forward to continue this fruitful collaboration and to build further on its success. By connecting technology and industry through research partnerships as initiated by Gilbert, I’m confident that IMEC will play an important role in providing leading-edge nanotechnology R&D which will enable solutions for a sustainable society.”
Gilbert Declerck stated: “I’m proud of what IMEC is today. By providing independent and quality research, IMEC has become probably the world’s largest research partnership in IC technology scaling and has extended successfully in areas like photovoltaics and biomedical electronics.
I have decided to pass on my responsibilities as CEO, but I will continue to serve IMEC in my new role. I have known Luc for many years and I am confident that under his leadership, IMEC will continue to grow and prosper. Luc is the ideal person to sustain our leadership position in chip scaling research, while expanding IMEC’s activities towards more application-oriented research in areas such as biomedical and energy. I’m really excited to support Luc in his new role and to further collaborate with IMEC to achieve its ambitious goals.”