Yuh-Jier Mii began on the bottom flooring of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. in 1994 as a fabrication integration supervisor. At this time he’s one of many Hsinchu-based firm’s leaders as senior vice chairman of analysis and growth. Throughout his practically 30 years at TSMC, he has been concerned with the creation of denser and denser built-in circuits.
The IEEE member is answerable for R&D for brand new chips constructed utilizing TSMC’s 3-nanometer course of node, anticipated to enter manufacturing later this 12 months. (The industrial time period nanometer refers to a brand new, improved era of silicon semiconductor chips.)
The world’s largest contract chip producer credit Mii with serving to it preserve expertise management within the foundry phase of the worldwide semiconductor {industry}.
For his “management in creating industry-leading foundry logic course of applied sciences and open innovation design platforms,” Mii is being honored with the 2022 IEEE Frederik Philips Award. He shares the award together with his colleague Cliff Hou, TSMC’s senior vice chairman of expertise growth and company analysis. The award is sponsored by Philips.
“It’s my nice honor to have obtained this award,” Mii says. “I came upon there have been many excellent leaders on this {industry} who’ve additionally obtained this award, similar to Dr. Gordon Moore. That is additionally particular for me as a result of I obtained it with Cliff, who’s doing the design a part of the work. We work collectively to make the expertise helpful for our clients.”
BOLD MOVESGrowing up, Mii was occupied with physics, astronomy, and every kind of science-related topics, he says. Like most budding engineers, he favored to tear issues aside to see how they labored.
“By nature, I used to be occupied with doing engineering,” he says. “Rising up in Taiwan, the atmosphere inspired individuals to develop into scientists or engineers.”
Mii earned a bachelor’s diploma in electrical engineering from Nationwide Taiwan College, and his grasp’s and Ph.D., additionally in EE, from the College of California, Los Angeles. He was employed in 1990 as a researcher at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Analysis Heart, in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. Throughout his 4 years there, he labored on IBM’s 0.1-micrometer CMOS expertise which, he says, had comparable dimensions to the 90-nanometer expertise he later labored on at TSMC.Mii left IBM to affix TSMC. It was, he says, a “massive and daring transfer in many individuals’s factors of view—going from pure analysis to course of integration within the manufacturing fab. However I feel that was an excellent transfer for me and a really uncommon alternative. I realized how fab operators work, what’s of their minds, and what’s required to make a expertise manufacturable.”
“It’s necessary for us to get the expertise and the knowledge from the entire world, not simply from the group in Taiwan.”After studying the ropes as a fab integration supervisor, he was promoted to fab deputy director. Then, in 2011, he was moved to R&D as a result of a number of individuals had left, he says. His time as a researcher at IBM was about to repay.
“As a result of I had some previous analysis expertise, I used to be transferred to R&D and managed the 90-nanometer program, after which the 40-nm,” he says.
Later he was put answerable for the corporate’s superior expertise growth. The position concerned defining the method expertise and main the group that will develop it for manufacturing nanotechnology-based semiconductor chips. They had been the smallest transistors produced on the time.
Like most prime leaders, Mii attends numerous conferences. Nevertheless, he’s nonetheless obsessed with diving in to assist remedy issues.
“It’s thrilling if you see a giant drawback and also you discover a technique to resolve it,” Mii says. “Due to my group, which is kind of succesful, I don’t have to get entangled within the particulars of problem-solving, nevertheless it’s at all times intriguing and thrilling to search out options.”
SEMICONDUCTOR CHALLENGESOne of Mii’s most necessary challenges, he says, is figuring out the choices for every expertise that can deliver essentially the most worth to TSMC’s clients in addition to ship the answer in a predictable schedule. That was definitely true of the upcoming 3-nm node, which can succeed the 5-nm node simply two and a half years later. The three-nm node is slated to hit the market later this 12 months, and he’s already engaged on the 2-nm model.
“We’re approaching atomic scale,” Mii says. “Earlier than, we may obtain the next-generation node by fine-tuning the method, however now for each era we should discover new methods when it comes to transistor structure, supplies, processes, and instruments. Up to now, it’s just about been a significant optical shrink, however that’s now not a easy trick.”
Early in his profession, creating a brand new course of expertise meant simply shrinking the transistor utilizing higher lithography. Nevertheless it requires extra innovation now, he says.
One other problem, he says, is discovering sufficient proficient engineers.
The semiconductor scarcity continues to be one other hurdle he has needed to face. In his private opinion—not essentially that of TSMC—it’ll take two to 3 years to deliver new fabs on-line to resolve the state of affairs. He partly blames the COVID-19 pandemic for disrupting the worldwide financial system, however the rising pervasiveness of electronics in day by day life can also be inflicting a surge in semiconductor demand.
He says the {industry} missed indicators that demand was rising. Nevertheless, he says, the sector realized loads from the state of affairs, and he expects it is going to do higher sooner or later.
“Proper now, the {industry} is investing an incredible quantity of capital into constructing additional capability to resolve this chip scarcity drawback,” Mii says. “We’ve a a lot clearer image of future demand at the moment than we had two years in the past.”
WISDOM FROM THE WORLDMII joined IEEE as a grad pupil at UCLA.
“As an EE pupil, it was pure to affix IEEE,” he says, “as a result of that’s the portal for individuals to change info and be taught.”
He’s nonetheless in IEEE to be taught, he says: “We at all times go to the conferences to change each info with others and likewise be taught from new issues.” Today, he acknowledges, he doesn’t have the time to attend many conferences, so as an alternative he sends his engineers. After they return, he holds a debriefing session to find out about developments and what course the {industry} is headed.
“Creating expertise by ourselves will not be sufficient,” Mii says. “In my management position, it’s necessary for us to get the expertise and the knowledge from the entire world, not simply from the group in Taiwan.”