Speaker

Aaron Thean, PhD

Professor

Aaron Thean is the Global Foundries Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He is currently the Deputy President (Academic Affairs) and Provost at NUS. In addition, he holds several technical leadership responsibilities at the University; which includes Director of SHINE research center on Next-Generation Hybrid Electronics research, and the founding Director of the Applied Materials-NUS Corporate Laboratory on Advanced Materials Research.   Prior to NUS, Aaron Thean was the Vice President of Logic Technologies at IMEC. Working with Semiconductor Industry leaders like Intel, TSMC, Samsung, Globalfoundries, Apple, and Sony, he directed the research and development of next-generation semiconductor technologies and emerging nano-device architectures.  Prior to joining IMEC in 2011, he was with Qualcomm’s CDMA technologies in San Diego, California. Aaron and his group worked on Qualcomm’s 20nm and 16nm mobile System-On-Chip technologies.   From 2007 to 2009, Aaron was with IBM, where he developed the 28-nm and 32-nm low-power bulk CMOS technology at IBM East Fishkill, New York. Before IBM, Aaron was with Freescale Semiconductor (and Motorola) where he led research on many novel devices. Aaron graduated from University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, USA, where he received his B.Sc. (Highest Honors), M.Sc., and Ph.D.  degrees in Electrical Engineering (Edmund J. James Scholar).  Recognized by Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) to be a NRF Returning Singaporean Scientist, he returned to Singapore to pursue his career as an academic in 2016.  He has co-authored over 300 technical papers in the areas of advanced microelectronics and holds more than 50 US patents.