ECS President |2020 – 2021
ECS Senior Vice President | 2017 – 2020
Stefan De Gendt is a scientific director at imec, Belgium, an R&D hub for nano and digital technologies. He is responsible for research on the chemistry and physics of exploratory materials. He joined imec as a researcher in the Ultra Clean Processing Group in 1996, working on topics including cleaning technology and analytical metrology for contamination control in CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) processing. In 2002, he became a group manager at imec and program manager of the IMEC Industrial Affiliation Program (IIAP) on high-k and gate metal materials, working to replace conventional SiO2-based gate dielectrics (by metaloxide high-k materials) and Si based gate electrodes (by metal materials) to allow further scaling of transistor technologies. De Gendt assumed responsibility for imec’s post-CMOS Nanotechnology program in 2005. This program’s goal was: 1) the exploration of devices using 1D (nanowire-like) architectures; 2) synthesis and use of carbon nanotubes for exploratory interconnect applications; 3) exploration of graphene synthesis and applications. Currently, as a research director, De Gendt oversees material- and process-related research on a wide variety of exploratory materials for CMOS and memory technology.
De Gendt obtained his PhD from Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium, in 1996. Today he is associated on a part-time basis with the Department of Chemistry at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven where he has coached more than 15 post docs and Phd students (more than 20 graduated since 2006; 10 are currently in progress; and an average of three research students per year). He is the co-author of more than 400 technical papers in refereed journals and co-inventor of cleaning and gate stack process steps, resulting in several patent applications. De Gendt has been actively involved since 2004 in the organization of international conferences (primarily with ECS) on high-k gate stack, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and III-V materials and atomic layer deposition. At IEDM (International Electron Devices Meeting), he served in numerous roles leading to the position of General Chair. De Gendt is a member at large of the ECS Dielectric Science and Technology Division and ECS Electronics and Photonics Division, as well as the ECS Europe Section. He served as technical editor for the ECS Journal of Solid State Science and Technology from 2011 to 2017.
