Samsung Semiconductor India Research, IISc join hands to boost India semiconductor R&D

The research agreement was exchanged by Balajee Sowrirajan, managing director at Samsung Semiconductor India Research, Bengaluru, and Govindan Rangarajan, director, at IISc.

The partnership seeks to build cutting-edge ESD device solutions to protect ultra-high-speed serial interfaces in advanced Integrated Circuits (ICs) and system-on-chip (SoC) products.

The related research will be carried out by Mayank Shrivastava’s group at the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering (DESE), IISc. Solutions arising from this research will be deployed in Samsung’s advanced process nodes, IISc said in a press statement.

ICs and SoCs are essential for practically any system, from small to big, that we see around us, but they are very sensitive to ESD failures, especially those developed using advanced nanoscale CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) technologies.

The majority of IC chip failures and field returns are attributed to ESD failures. This is also rare expertise and industries holding the art of designing ESD protection devices and interface concepts lead the market. Thus, R&D in ESD technology for highly reliable interfaces and SoCs that operate at low power and high speed is an integral part of the semiconductor innovation effort.

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IISc is one of the few institutes in the world leading ESD device research, the statement added.“We are glad to partner with IISc to boost semiconductor innovation and envisage developing ESD knowledge along with expertise available in IISc. Our goal is also to increase capacity building through training programs at the postgraduate level, opening up opportunities for students to pursue industry internships, and encouraging entrepreneurial ventures by young researchers,” said Sowrirajan.

“We are excited to collaborate with Samsung Semiconductor India Research in the crucial area of advanced nanoelectronics device research. The partnership reinforces our commitment to strengthen industry-academia engagements that can make a significant impact in the coming years,” Rangarajan added.

Samsung Semiconductor India Research, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, is the technology hub enabling growth in both hardware development as well as software powered solutions in semiconductor technologies.

IISc is India’s top academic institution offering world-class education to train future leaders in science and engineering. Working towards a collective goal, partnerships like these will unlock the true potential of semiconductor innovation to power the next generation of hyper intelligent devices, the IISc statement said.

“We have been collaborating extensively with semiconductor industries worldwide on advanced nanoelectronics technologies, including solutions to ESD reliability threats to advanced SoCs. We have carried out both fundamental and applied research on ESD protection devices, with a strong emphasis on creating practical solutions for the semiconductor industry in a range of technology nodes,” said Mayank Shrivastava, who heads the MSDLab, and will be leading this collaborative effort.