by John Iacoponi, IITC/MAM conference general co-chair

May 9, 2011 - The 2011 International Interconnect Technology Conference (IITC) kicked off today in Dresden, Germany. Held in conjunction with the Materials for Advanced Metallization Conference (MAM), this is the first year the IEEE sponsored conference has been held in Europe.

Attendance at the conference is strong, with a large number of attendees coming from Asia, the US, and from across Europe. In addition there are quite a few local attendees from high-tech companies located in the Silicon Saxony region in and around Dresden.

The conference started by recognizing two outstanding papers from last year's IITC 2010. The Michele Lerme Best Paper award was given to Nancy Heylen of IMEC for the paper entitled "Link Between Silica-Metal Agglomeration and High Porosity Ultralow-k Scratch Formation during Chemical Mechanical Polishing." The S.C. Sun best student paper award was given to Mark Oliver of Stanford University for the paper entitled "Molecular Design of Ultralow-k Hybrid Glasses." Congratulations to those two authors on their outstanding contributions to IITC 2010.

Dirk Wristers, VP of Technology & Integration at GLOBALFOUNDRIES Dresden, gave this year's IITC keynote presentation entitled "The Innovation Imperative: Delivering a New Model for Semiconductor Technology & Manufacturing." He highlighted three important aspects driving today's semiconductor business: technology development and leading-edge fab costs, the importance of continued technical innovation, and the value of collaboration.

Technical paper sessions on Monday included papers on chip-package interaction (CPI), photonics & optical interconnect, low-k & metallization materials, and characterization. The joint IITC/MAM conference continues through Thursday May 12 at the Dresden Congress Center. Dresden, in the heart of Silicon Saxony, is proving to be an excellent location for this combined conference.

John Iacoponi is technology research manager at Globalfoundries, and general co-chair of the IITC/MAM conference. Other co-chairs: Ehrenfried Zschech (Fraunhofer Institute), Takeshi Furusawa (Renesas Electronics), and Stefan Schulz (TU Chemnitz).