SEMI FlexTech announces 2023 FLEXI Award winners

The FLEXI Awards spotlight FHE contributions in five categories: R&D Achievement, Product Innovation and Commercialisation, Environmental Sustainability, Workforce Development and Industry Leadership.

2023 FLEXI Award winners

R&D Achievement – Pradeep Lall, MacFarlane Endowed Distinguished Professor and Director at Auburn University, was recognised for his landmark contributions in developing additive manufacturing processes and reliability testing for additive printed flexible electronics. His research has been instrumental in achieving surface-mount assembled additively printed circuits. He has regularly presented papers at the FLEX Conference focusing on process, material, and reliability advancements for additively printed FHE and is the academic co-lead of the SEMI Task Force on FHE Reliability Standard Development.

Product innovation and commercialisation – Dr. Azar Alizadeh, Principal Scientist, and her team at GE Research won a FLEXI for developing low-cost wireless, flexible, and wearable medical devices for both military and clinical use. The wireless vital sign monitoring system has significantly advanced low-power, wearable, wireless multi-parameter devices and analytics capable of monitoring heart rate, respiration rate, blood oxygenation, continuous changes in blood pressure and skin temperature for ambulatory patient monitoring and decision-making.

Environmental sustainability – Robert Praino, Co-founder and COO of CHASM, received a FLEXI for leading a project with U.S. Department of Energy to advance the decarbonisation of cement through the CHASM NTeC-C additive that reduces the amount of cement in concrete, eliminating 0.7 metric tons of CO2 per ton of concrete. For new semiconductor fabs between 8 million and 15 million square feet, the additive could reduce CO2 from the floor construction alone by 18,000 to 36,000 metric tons.

Workforce development – Dr. Peter Doerschuk of Cornell University was recognised as a key advocate and intellectual partner in applying AI/ML approaches to optimise cleanroom processes. He has been instrumental in training master’s degree students in image processing and deep learning, many hired by top develop AI tool developers. His work has led to a deep neural net that will be used by several Cornell engineering students in the coming years. A key focus of Dr. Doerschuk is to help grow the workforce needed to develop next-generation micro- and nano-scale manufacturing strategies for both FHE and traditional chip manufacturing.

Industry leadership – Dr. Nancy Stoffel, Platform Leader for Flexible Hybrid Electronics at GE Research, won a FLEXI for her outstanding leadership in advancing FHE manufacturing. She has led road-mapping and gap analysis workshops critical to identifying future project topics and building out a robust FHE infrastructure. Dr. Stoffel is also addressing the need for more STEM workers and advocates tirelessly for diversity in science and engineering by supporting and speaking on the topic at workshops, panels, programs and other forums.