Chenming Hu

Dr. Chenming Hu has been called the Father of 3D Transistor for developing the FinFET in 1999. Intel is the first company to use FinFET in 2011 production calling it the most radical shift in semiconductor technology in over 40 years. Other most advanced semiconductor companies will use FinFET in 2014. The world's largest technology association IEEE called him "Microelectronics Visionary" when presenting him the 2009 Nishizawa Medal for "achievements critical to producing smaller yet more reliable and higher-performance integrated circuits". 2011 Asian American Engineer of the Year Award cited his industry-standard transistor model "used in designing IC products with cumulative sales of many hundreds of billions of dollars". 2013 Kaufman Award noted his "tremendous career of creativity and innovation that fueled the past four decades of the semiconductor industry". US Semiconductor Industry Association lauded his research leadership for "advancement of the electronics industry and of our national economy". Dr. Hu is Professor in Graduate School of University of California, Berkeley, a board director of SanDisk Corp. and of the nonprofit Friends of Children with Special Needs. From 2001 to 2004 he was the Chief Technology Officer of TSMC, world's largest dedicated integrated circuits manufacturing company. He was the board chairman of the nonprofit East Bay Chinese School, Oakland, CA. and the founding chairman of Celestry Design Technologies until its acquisition by Cadence Design Systems. He has authored four books including a 2010 semiconductor device textbook and 900 research papers, and has been granted over 100 US patents. He is honored with memberships in three national academies -- the US National Academy of Engineering, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Academia Sinica. His many other professional honors include Andrew Grove Award for device reliability research, Donald Pederson Award for the BSIM transistor model, Honorary Doctoral Degree of National Chiao Tung University, Aristotle Award for influential mentoring of many outstanding students and the IEEE EDS Education Award for "distinguished contributions to education and inspiration of students, practicing engineers and future educators". He also received UC Berkeley's highest honor for teaching -- the Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. Hu received his B.S. degree from National Taiwan University, which honored him with the 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from UC Berkeley, all in electrical engineering. He is currently researching green transistor for a new century of growth in electronics. He shares an interest in painting with his sons Raymond and Jason.