ISSCC’s most prolific contributors ever

The International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) recognizes TU Delft's Kofi Makinwa as an outstanding contributor to the event over the past 70 years. An expert in mixed-signal circuits, sensor interfaces and smart sensor design, Makinwa has published more than 70 papers at annual conferences widely considered the "Olympics of chip design."

True to form, Makinwa and his students published a record eight papers at the most recent ISSCC, held in San Francisco from February 19 to 23.

Kofi Makinwa is currently Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor and Head of the Department of Microelectronics at the School of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Engineering at TU Delft.

Data shows that Kofi Makinwa’s main expertise lies in high-precision analog circuit design, especially in the design of smart temperature sensors, which is the most unique and no one can control it so far. In addition to competing in the ISSCC hall of the IC Design Olympia competition, Kofi has also won numerous awards over the years, including JSSC 2005 best paper award, ISSCC 2006 Jan van Vessem award, ISSCC 2008 Jan van Vessem award, ISCAS 2008 Best student paper award, ISSCC 2008 Jan van Vessem award, ESSCIRC 2009 Young Scientist award, Transducers 2011 Best paper award...etc., with remarkable achievements, it stands proud on the international stage.

The list of top contributors includes more designers from the Low Lands. Bram Nauta of the University of Twente ranked tenth, followed by Imec researcher Piet Wambacq. Jan Craninckx (Imec), Michiel Steyaert (KU Leuven), Johan Huijsing (TU Delft) and Eric Klumperink (UT) also find themselves among the world's most prolific integrated circuit design innovators.

In recent years, the domestic semiconductor industry has developed rapidly, and technological research fields have also continued to make breakthroughs. One of the important indicators is high-quality papers. At the ISSCC 2022 conference at the beginning of the year, a total of 30 papers from China + Hong Kong and Macao were selected. At the ISSCC 2023 conference, not only the domestic number First, it surpassed the United States for the first time.

The global semiconductor industry holds several major conferences every year, among which the three major conferences ISSCC, VLSI and IEDM are the most influential.

Among them, ISSCC (International Solid-State Circuits Conference) is organized by the IEEE Solid-State Circuit Society (SSCS). It is the highest-level conference in the field of integrated circuit design recognized by the world's academic and industrial circles, and is considered to be the leading conference in the field of integrated circuit design. "Chip Olympics". ISSCC, which began in 1953, is usually the first place where the most cutting-edge solid-state circuit technologies in the world are published in various periods. It attracts more than 3,000 attendees from industry and academia around the world each year.

In the past few years, the quantity and quality of domestically produced papers at the ISSCC conference have been continuously improved. In 2022, a total of 30 papers from China, Hong Kong and Macao were selected, ranking third, followed by South Korea and the United States with 41 and 69 papers, respectively. Second, first.

In the China region online press conference, according to Associate Professor Luo Wenji, ISSCC 2023 Far East Region Vice Chairman, this year ISSCC received a total of 629 papers, with an acceptance rate of 31.4%.

Specifically, 32 papers were selected from South Korea, 42 papers from the United States, and 59 papers from China. They directly entered the first place from third last year, surpassing the United States and South Korea for the first time. After that, there were 23 independently submitted articles from Taiwan, China, and Japan and the Netherlands tied for fifth, with 10 articles each selected.

Not only has the number increased, but domestic papers have been selected in each chip category, while Japan and South Korea are biased towards certain fields. For example, South Korea is strong in memory and flash memory chips, and most of the papers are related to this, while Japan is strong in image sensors and flash memory. .

From the perspective of subdivisions, articles in China are mainly concentrated in the fields of MEM and RF. The papers are ranked from most to least, with UM, Tsinghua University and Peking University ranking the top three. The University of Macau has 15 papers included, while Tsinghua University and Peking University have 13 and 6 papers included respectively.

"This is the first time that China's semiconductor papers have topped the list." Nikkei News Network said that China is increasingly present at semiconductor-related international conferences. It is obvious that China is strengthening its research capabilities, and universities and enterprises are promoting research on semiconductors in order to survive in the competition in semiconductor technology.

ISSCC mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao have shown rapid growth this year, covering all technical fields. The number of included papers continues to rise, and the number of first-affiliated institutions that have been included for the first time has increased.

Some comments pointed out that how to combine industry, academia and research is an urgent issue facing the global semiconductor industry. Scientific research projects promoted by government funds of a country may achieve rich scientific research results, but the technology transformation rate may not be high. Only when enterprises invest in scientific research projects in universities, the demand for the transformation of technological achievements will become more urgent, universities will receive greater impetus, and the efficiency of transformation will be higher.

*Disclaimer: This article is original by the author. The content of the article is the personal opinion of the author. The reprinting by Semiconductor Industry Watch is only to convey a different point of view. It does not mean that Semiconductor Industry Watch agrees or supports the view. If you have any objections, please contact Semiconductor Industry Watch.

Today is the 3331st content shared by "Semiconductor Industry Observation" with you. Welcome to pay attention.