IEEE Awards Booklet - 2011 - 9

IEEE CORPORATE RECOGNITION

I E E E

M E D A L S

2011 IEEE
Corporate Innovation Recognition

2011 IEEE
John von Neumann Medal

Sponsored by IBM Corporation

imec

Tony Hoare

For continuous contributions to CMOS technology and for
innovations in global business development and universityindustry collaborations

For seminal contributions to the scientific foundation of
software design

Founded in 1984, imec has tackled the roadblocks to continued
scaling of transistor size with innovations in CMOS integrated
circuit development that have led to more powerful computers
and consumer electronics. Key to imec's success is its distinctive
model of collaboration with industrial partners through strategic
industrial affiliation programs. This allows industry to share talent
and intellectual property (IP) and to reduce risk through co-investment and ultimately accelerate research using imec's pilot lines.
imec has also an extensive library of IP, know-how that can be
transferred or tuned to the needs of company. In 2004, imec
created a sub-32-nm research platform for 300-mm silicon wafers
built around state-of-the-art equipment. Together with worldleading semiconductor manufacturers, foundries and equipment
and material suppliers, this research resulted in world-record
SRAM cells. Today, imec continues to innovate, moving below the
22-nm dimension and toward 450-mm wafers for further improvements in integrated circuit performance and exploring
three-dimensional silicon technologies. Based on its silicon process
technology expertise, imec is now working on the base technology needed to improve power electronics, using gallium nitride as
its material of choice. imec also applies its semiconductor process
technology expertise to develop innovative silicon solar cells with
higher efficiency and lower cost. imec's research on integrated
CMOS and microelectromechanical systems technologies integrated on top of CMOS has led to a heterogeneous integration
platform offering companies development-on-demand, prototyping and small volume production of innovative products combining
various state-of-the-art technologies. imec's healthcare research
resulted already in intelligent body-area networks with wireless
sensors, such as EEG or ECG, which allow ambulatory monitoring
of people to increase the comfort level of patients.

Professor Sir Tony Hoare has established the foundation of much
that is taken for granted today in software design. A major portion
of Sir Tony's 50-plus-year scientific career has been devoted to
developing the theoretical underpinnings of software to the point
where its creation becomes a true engineering field. His work also
has had practical impact, with application to commercial software
development projects involving database management systems
for the telecommunications industry and security and safety applications in the medical, transportation and nuclear power
industries. Sir Tony invented the Quicksort sorting algorithm in
1960, which has been widely studied and implemented in modern
computers. He also led a team during the 1960s that developed a
successful early compiler for the ALGOL 60 high-level language.
His compiler checked all array subscripts at run-time, which is a
precaution now common in modern object-oriented languages.
Rejecting shared variable interaction, he proposed "communicating sequential processes" to address concurrency issues among
programs. This bold step was very influential and saw application
in the U.S. Department of Defense's Ada language. It was also the
inspiration for the Occam programming language used in the
transputer microprocessor developed during the 1980s for parallel
computing. More recent work from Sir Tony involves working on
the theory that would underpin a verification toolset and encouraging computer scientists to work together toward its achievement.
A Fellow of the U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering and a foreign
associate of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, he is
currently a principal researcher with Microsoft Research Ltd.,
Cambridge, U.K.

With headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, and a staff of about
1,900 people, imec has offices in Belgium, the Netherlands,
Taiwan, the United States, China and Japan. Dr. Luc Van den
hove is imec's current president and chief executive officer.
Scope: For outstanding and exemplary contributions by an industrial
entity, governmental or academic organization, or other corporate
body, which have resulted in major advancement in electrotechnology.

Scope: For outstanding achievements in computer-related science
and technology.
9

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Awards Booklet - 2011