SDC6 Judges

Thomas Grebs

Thomas Grebs received his B.S.E.E. in electrical engineering from Wilkes University (1983) and his ME in ME in Microelectronic Manufacturing Engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology. Tom has also completed post-graduate course work in electrical engineering at Pennsylvania State University.  He was employed at ST Microelectronics for 5 years as ion implant and diffusion engineer for the process engineering group.  Tom then spent 6 years at Commodore as senior process engineer responsible for photolithography and plasma etching of thin films. For the past 12 years he has been with Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation (formally Intersil Corp / Harris Semiconductor Corp) where he has gained extensive experience in manufacturing and processing of power discrete devices.   Tom has completed Manufacturing Leadership Training program offered by Fairchild Semiconductor. He was appointed as Fairchild Key Technologist.  In 2005, Tom joined the Device Concept and Device Technology Development Group in Mountaintop and is currently responsible for process integration of Low Voltage Discrete Power Trench MOSFET’s and IGBT’s which are used in the computer, automotive and industrial markets.  In addition, Tom has co-author more than 20 journal and conference papers on gate oxide integrity, surface preparation, metalization schemes for low Rdson improvements and trench MOSFET characteristics.  He holds 15 U.S. patents on Discrete Power MOSFET’s device formation and surface cleaning apparatus with several patents pending.

 

Rodney Ridley

Rodney S. Ridley, Sr. received his B.S. degree in Physics from Lincoln University (PA) in 1987, M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Ph.D. degree in Engineering Science both from Penn State University in 1992 and 1996 respectively.  He has worked in the areas of liquid and gas-phase cleaning of silicon wafers as well as the effects of contamination on the growth kinetics and reliability of silicon dioxide.  In 1996 he joined Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation (FCS), Mountaintop, PA (formally Intersil Corp / Harris Semiconductor Corp). He spent nine years as a staff development engineer working in the area of advanced process development for power discrete devices. His main focus was on process integration of Trench Power MOSFET's.  He was also responsible for thermal & CVD processes, wafer cleaning & post etch surface recovery, wafer level device testing & reliability, wafer thinning, process metrology & control, and University relations. He was appointed as a Fairchild Key Technologist. In 2005 he joined the FCS Analog IC development group in (S. Portland, ME).as a Principle development engineer.  He is currently responsible for process integration and project management for device trench isolation and process integration of a novel 700V DMOS process architecture which also includes LV CMOS, bipolar, and passive devices.  He holds 13 US patents with multiple patents pending.  He has authored or co-authored over 30 technical articles published in refereed journals and conferences proceedings.  He has a strong interest in corporate/university relations and actively serves as a member of the FCS University Relations Steering Committee as well as directing over $1 million in FCS direct funded research projects.  He spent several years as an adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering at Wilkes University and serves on the industrial advisory board for several universities including Penn State University’s Nanofabrication Manufacturing Technology (NMT) Partnership.  He is a member of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) were currently serves as treasurer for Exec Committee of the Electronics and Photonics division. He is also a member of the SEMI/IEEE Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC) technical committee and typically serves as a conference session chair.

 

Babak D. Beheshti

Babak D. Beheshti has been an IEEE member for over 18 years and active in IEEE volunteer leadership positions at local, regional, and institute wide levels.  Babak is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering and Technology, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, New York. Babak has been a faculty member at NYIT since 1987. Babak has also been an active consultant in the areas of wireless and cellular systems as well embedded microprocessor based systems, having directly worked with the world's most widely known handset manufacturers. Babak received his BEEE and MSEE both in Electrical Engineering from State University of New York at Stony Brook, in 1985 and 1987, respectively. Babak received his PhD in computer science from KWU in 2004. Babak is author of numerous articles and papers, and has presented in many conferences on topics ranging from engineering education to wireless systems. Babak is a Senior Member of IEEE and a recipient of the IEEE Millennium Medal. Babak is a member of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society, and Eta Kappa Nu electrical engineering honor society.

 

Clark Hochgraf

Clark Hochgraf is supervisor of systems and electrical engineering at General Motors FCA in Honeoye Falls, where GM is developing fuel cell engine technology that will power the automobile of the future. He worked in power conversion research at Westinghouse and product development at Visteon. He has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is a member of IEEE and INCOSE, and is active in standards development with IEEE and UL.

 

Robert H. Gusciora

Robert H. Gusciora earned his BSEE from the University of Massachusetts in 1964.  Since then, Mr. Gusciora has been an engineer, an engineering manager, and/or an independent consultant for various electrical, electromechanical, and electronic manufacturing companies.  Throughout his career, he has designed or influenced value-based quality and reliability improvements for products and manufacturing processes.  During this time, either independently or by facilitating design teams, he has developed practical methods and efficient tests to vastly improve the quality and reliability of commercial hardware.  As an example, he has creatively used HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) on a number of preliminary designs and poor-performing products, sometimes improving product reliability by a whole order of magnitude.  Mr. Gusciora is the author of 13 papers in various technical journals, and three papers are about HALT.  His unique HALT work has been referenced in two reliability textbooks.  

Mr. Gusciora is a member of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), RPCN (Rochester Professional Consultants Network), and SRE (Society of Reliability Engineers).  He also is a Senior Member of ASQ (American Society for Quality), where he is listed as an available speaker for its Electronics and Communications Division and for its Reliability Division.  For seven years, Mr. Gusciora served on the Executive Committee for the ASQ Electronics Division, and between 1990 and 1992, he was its Chairman.

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Speakers

Rodney Ridley and Clark Hochgraf