Sayeef Salahuddin becomes technical adviser of US National Semiconductor Technology Center

Bangladeshi American Sayeef Salahuddin, a TSMC professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, has become a member of the inaugural technical advisory board of the US National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC).

Natcast, a non-profit entity designated by the US Department of Commerce to operate the NSTC established under the CHIPS and Science Act, announced earlier this month the names of the 19 members of the technical advisory board (TAB) comprising key stakeholders spanning the US semiconductor ecosystem.

"The members will provide Natcast with strategic guidance and expertise to inform NSTC research priorities and help shape the NSTC Research Agenda," Natcast said in a statement.

Natcast anticipates publishing the initial NSTC research agenda in the coming months.

"The TAB's guidance will be pivotal in identifying real-time industry challenges and seizing emerging research opportunities," said Dr. Robert Chau, Senior Vice President of Research at Natcast and TAB Chair. "Leveraging the NSTC's leading-edge research facilities and resources, the TAB will help shape an NSTC research agenda that will foster a robust, resilient, and world-leading U.S. semiconductor ecosystem."

Members of the inaugural TAB commit to terms of 1-3 years resulting in staggered rotation of members and ensuring broad participation and varied perspectives. The initial terms will commence May 2025.

"The NSTC was established as a public-private consortium to represent and advance U.S. semiconductor research and innovation," said Susan Feindt, senior vice president of Ecosystem Development at Natcast. 

"The TAB will play a critical role in these efforts as its members lend their varied and valued perspectives and provide critical input to ensure NSTC research efforts are responsive to real-time industry challenges, benefit NSTC Members, and support America's global leadership in semiconductor design and manufacturing."

Professor Sayeef Salahuddin received his B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from BUET (Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology) in 2003 and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University in 2007. 

He joined the faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley in 2008.

His work has focused on conceptualization and exploration of novel device physics for low power electronic and spintronic devices. Salahuddin has championed the concept of using 'interacting systems' for switching, showing the fundamental advantage of such systems over the conventional devices in terms of power dissipation. 

This led to the discovery of Negative Capacitance Transistors that allows for sub kT/q subthreshold operation in transistors.

Salahuddin has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the US Government on early career scientists and engineers. Salahuddin also received a number of other awards including the NSF CAREER award, the IEEE Nanotechnology Early Career Award, the Young Investigator Awards from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the Army Research Office (ARO) and best paper awards from IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems and from the VLSI-TSA conference. 

In 2012, Applied Physics Letters (APL) highlighted two of his papers among 50 most notable papers among all areas published in APL within 2009-2012. Salahuddin also received the George E Smith Award from the IEEE Electron Devices Society.

Salahuddin is a co-director of the Berkeley Device Modeling Center and Berkeley Center for Negative Capacitance Transistors. He served on the editorial board of IEEE Electron Devices Letters (2013-16) and was the chair of the IEEE Electron Devices Society committee on Nanotechnology (2014-16).

Congratulating Salahuddin, the Bangladesh Semiconductor Industry Association President M A Jabbar expressed his hope that the diaspora success would help strengthen the Bangladeshi semiconductor ecosystem.