Jan 27 2015
Michael Liehr, Executive Vice President of Innovation and Technology at the State University of New York (SUNY) Polytechnic Institute, will give a talk at 10 a.m. Friday, Jan. 30, in Room 1065 of Kemper Hall on the UC Davis campus. The event is hosted by S.J. Ben Yoo, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The talk is presented as part of the College of Engineering’s Distinguished Lecture Series.
Liehr’s presentation, “CNSE-SUNY Poly: A Nanoelectronics Overview,” will cite his campus as a model for the crucial role that close collaboration between universities and state government can play in economic development. Such mutually beneficial relationships are enhanced when established companies launch facilities within or close to campuses, typically at science or industrial parks. The resulting physical proximity of commercial enterprises allows the convenient use of university infrastructures, while encouraging the training and recruitment of students whose specialized skills are desired by the companies.
Liehr will cite SUNY’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), already recognized as a global education, research, development and technology deployment resource. He will detail CNSE’s research response to the challenges facing traditional lithographic scale modeling, focusing on potential cost-effective solutions to extreme ultraviolet’s (EUV) impediment to productivity gains.
In his role as Executive Vice President of Innovation and Technology, Liehr spearheads the creation of new business opportunities for SUNY, while managing integrated industry-university consortia and public-private partnerships. He’s also responsible for the efficient operation of the CNSE core strategic CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) partnerships, notably those with IBM, GlobalFoundries, SEMATECH, Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT), Tokyo Electron (TEL) and the Lam Research Corporation.
Liehr also is the Polytechnic Institute’s Vice President for Research, a role that finds him leading SUNY’s Network of Excellence in Materials and Manufacturing. He joined SUNY in 2009, after a lengthy and successful career at IBM, where his many responsibilities included leading the Research Division’s Microelectronics Manufacturing Research Program, and facilitating strategic global manufacturing alliances for leading-edge semiconductor products.
Liehr obtained his doctorate in physics in 1982, at Germany’s RWTH AAchen University. His research areas include 450mm equipment and factory integration; advanced CMOS logic integration, derivative development and technology transfer; and sub-10nm device concepts.