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Commentary & Perspective...
CS Week: A Technology-Rich GatheringOctober 24, 2006...If you're one of those making a last minute decision as to whether or not it will be worth your time to pack your bags and head for San Antonio, Texas for this year's CS Week November 12-15, get packing... especially if you consider yourself a true technologist, or you're someone who simply wants to (or needs to) hang out with true leading edge technologists. Looking at the CS Week agenda, this is clearly one of the most important and technology-rich gatherings for our uniquely international community. The main event is IEEE's annual Compound Semiconductor IC Symposium (CSICS), formerly known as the GaAs IC Symposium, which kicks off with the traditional parallel Short Courses beginning early Sunday morning, November 12th, with the Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing's Key Conference co-locating with CSICS at the San Antonio Convention Center on Nov. 13th and 14th. The two events share a common exhibit and the big party this year will be a recreational outing to the famed Rio Cibolo Ranch, noted for it genuine Texas Longhorn cattle. We start this preview with the kickoff event, the CSICS short courses. One course covers GaN circuits and applications, coordinated by Cree's Primit Parikh of the famed Santa Barbara Technology Center, and the second course covers RF and high speed CMOS, taught by Sorin Voinigescu of the University of Toronto. A pdf of specifically what will be covered in the Short Courses and the impressive lineup of VIPs teaching each section is available via this link. It may help to remember that these courses emulate the very structure of what makes the compound semi industry so unique, in this case the latest in advanced design technology applications for both defense and commercial markets. The lectures cater to a wide range of interests and experience levels and are designed specifically to provide attendees a solid and very current overview of the device technology involved from device physics fundamentals through specific circuit examples and applications. These are the classic crash courses on (1) GaN for electronic applications and (2) how to adapt to the move into higher frequency use of CMOS in RF applications, which for years was the sole province of the compounds. In short... these are the moving targets. Also on Sunday, from 4p to 7p, CSICS offers their traditional Primer Course, which is especially recommended for students and other newcomers to the compound semi industry. Title for this year's course is simply "Basics of Compound Semiconductor ICs" taught by longtime super teachers and technology gurus, Steve Long of UC Santa Barbara and Don Estreich of Agilent (Santa Rosa). Both of these men have been in our field for longer than even I have. In fact, I remember well taking a primer course from Don that got me hooked on the business way back in the late 1970s! It'll be great to see Don and Steve again. I strongly recommend taking their course. Even if you're an old-comer to the field, you might learn something! Scrolling quickly down the CSICS agenda note also that the initial kickoff invited speakers for the opening session of CSICS are: Jerry Neal cofounder of RFMD and John Palmour a cofounder of Cree. What a treat to have them in attendance. They start bright and early at 8a, so be there early to get a good seat. A pdf of the entire CSICS conference program is viewable via this link and the meet begins first thing Monday, November 13th, as does the Key Conference, the agenda of which is viewable via this link. The two are held in parallel, so there's lots of decision-making involved as to where to go when and who to hear presenting what. Key Conference speakers also get started at bright and early Monday beginning with a session investigating the convergence of III-V and silicon technologies. Needless to say, you best scroll through the above two agendas carefully ahead of time to maximize your personal schedule. You've undoubtedly received the familiar bright burnt orange CSICS brochure in the mail by now, but if not, it's all online this year. And in that bright burnt orange brochure, there are of the convention center where both events are held (and you might want to bring your roller skates). The CS Week exhibition opens Monday evening with an exhibition reception at the end of the Monday sessions. Tuesday evening is the outing to Rio Cibolo Ranch. Tying in the Longhorn ranch party theme, the quippy theme for CSICS this year is "Betting The Ranch on Compound Semiconductors." Not wanting to miss any of the CS Week fun and partying, my personal intent is to roller skate between the various sessions like a dutiful technology reporter/commentator after a leisurely drive from my own Longhorn ranch in the Texas Hill Country, located about 2.5 hrs from San Antonio in the geographical center of the state of Texas in the old ghost-township called Placid. Look it up. Even though the population has now dropped to about 30 humans (and lots and lots of livestock and native wildlife) it's actually on most maps. Because I'm a Texas rancher as well as a compound semi industry journalist, I simply have to comment on the uncanny coincidences with CSICS's theme this year. The University of Texas, headquartered in Austin (with campuses in other major Texas cities, including San Antonio) has the Longhorn as its mascot and UT's colors are burnt orange. In our family, UT Longhorn football (the defending national champions) rules, most of us having attended that prestigious university. We have 10 wonderful young, pettable Longhorn steers at our Legacy Ranch, by design, because we love Texas Longhorns, literally and figuratively. UT's mascot, Bevo, is a personal friend of ours and we obtained five of our herd from the the same ranch Bevo lives on, Sunrise Ranch, just outside Austin. For the record, neither Bevo's human parents (John T and Betty Baker) nor my husband Bill Randall and I would ever dream of "betting our ranches" against anything... not even the compounds! The Bakers and the Randalls know well that what many professional people throughout the world dream of having is a something as tranquil and beautiful as a ranch in a "placid" setting. Especially a ranch that features something as magnificent as a pettable Texas Longhorn, which you'll get to see up close at the Rio Cibolo Ranch at CS Week in San Antonio. So you can go ahead and symbolically "bet the ranch" if you want to, but here in the real Placid, Texas we longhorn fans know to count our good fortune and bet only on tomorrow's weather... or next Saturday's football game. The rest you have to work for. While some risks may be worth their eventual reward, trust me... the real ranch life is worth protecting and preserving for posterity. Back to the real world of the compound semiconductors and technology advancement, which is what the CSIC Symposium and IOP's Key Conference are all about. While much of the agenda at CSICS is made up of peer-reviewed technical papers, there are always lively panel sessions to keep attendees on their toes, which are notable for their clever titles. This year's sessions include a Monday afternoon panel on "Reconfigurable and Tunable Networks" at 3p, "Compound Semiconductor MOSFETs: Fact or Fiction? And Who Cares?" Tuesday at 1p, "Can we trust parasitic extractors at high frequencies?" on Wednesday at 3:30p, and in a parallel panel on Wednesday at 3:30p, "PA Technology for WiMAX - Can challengers take on LDMOS at 3.5 GHz and beyond?" Each feature lineups of everyone's favorite panelists. And over at Key Conference, the emphasis on the wide bandgaps obviously caught my eye as being of especially key interest to those working on GaN and SiC. The Tuesday morning session at Key kicks off with a look at SiC and GaN power devices, and at 8:55 attendees will again have an opportunity to hear from John Palmour, executive VP and co-founder of Cree, along with other excellent WBG speakers in Session 3. (Ref: agenda for details). Then, in Session 4 right after lunch, Jeff Shealy of RFMD (formerly of RF Nitro, which was acquired by RFMD) will be the first speaker talking about Group III-Nitride device and materials strategies, followed my Remis Gaska, president/CEO of Sensor Electronic Technology and then Keith Evans, president/CEO of Kyma, followed by Jelix Ejeckam, CEO of Group4 Laboratories and Jeff Nause, president of Cermet. This is a terrific lineup of GaN materials and device experts. I'll be at that one for sure, because of not only the content, but hey... these GaN guys are great people to hang out with at a party, which is the next thing on the agenda. I promise to tell them more than they'll ever want to know about longhorns at the party at Rio Cabolo Ranch. I hope to see you there too. If you have news or
views to share about the compound semiconductor, LED or solid
state lighting industries |
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