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Robert Clark is a senior member of the technical staff and director in the thin film process technology group at TEL Technology Center, America, which is TEL’s largest R&D center outside Japan and located in Albany, NY. He is currently working onsite at imec in Leuven, Belgium where he was tasked with starting, managing and growing an on-site research program centered around thin films. In addition to ongoing projects, he will start work on multiple new research and development projects in the next 1-2 years.

About the Past Career

His responsibility was to develop precursors^*for the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD) of High-k and metal electrode films. He helped to develop the first Hf precursor used for ALD High-k gate dielectrics in high volume manufacturing, and also learned to develop and test new CVD and ALD processes. In January 2006, he moved to TEL Technology Center, America, and to Albany, NY as a process engineer working on High-k ALD processes. Since then, he has been promoted a few times and moved to California, but he has been consistently part of TEL Technology Center, America working on thin films for the past 18 years.

Europe Plays a Central Role in Semiconductor Research

“The semiconductor world is huge, spanning solar, lighting, analog and digital computing, memory, etc. But the process technology frontier for semiconductors, and a lot of nanotechnology, sits at the leading edge of logic and memory chip development at companies. That is where I have been focused for the past 24 years or so. I think imec is generally acknowledged in the industry as the leading research consortium for semiconductor process technology development. Most of the major device makers are partners with imec, as is TEL along with many other partners and suppliers. In many ways, especially with respect to logic chip development, imec is blazing the trail the industry plans to follow.

An interesting thing for the industry is that Asia is the center of manufacturing, and the U.S. is probably the center of design, but the center of research is in Europe at imec- it’s a unique place. We are working constantly to keep Moore’s law alive and now to build onto it as well.”

As a Member of the ALD/ALE Committees

Rob, who also serves as a member of the ALD/ALE committee, gave a tutorial on atomic-scale processing for semiconductor technology at ALD/ALE2024, held in Helsinki, Finland in August.

“For the ALD/ALE conference and workshop we have separate committees for ALD and for ALE, which means atomic layer etching and the reverse of ALD. I am currently on the ALD committee, but I’ve also contributed a bit on ALE. We try to promote the technology and the conference and to encourage researchers to submit their work to present at the conference. The biggest job is to rate all the abstracts that get submitted for presentation at the conference and then figure out which ones to accept. Of course, then we need to plan the conference, act as chairs of the sessions, etc. It’s a lot of work and there are a ton of submissions every year, but I think the whole community benefits in the end because ALD/ALE and related processes are essential for the future of semiconductor manufacturing.”

The Future Beyond the Advancement of Technology

“For me, the biggest things are always coming back to sustainability these days. For people in general, we need to think more and more about achieving sustainability. A technology that doesn’t scale or harms the environment is unsustainable. A work-life ratio that’s out of balance is likewise unsustainable. Even in my personal life, I am seeking it. I want sustainable friendships and relationships. Equity, equality, efficiency, balance, respect, and conservation all arise from the need for sustainability. If we can focus our technology to create a sustainable society, we can realize technology enabling life and a better future for the whole planet.”

“In the pursuit of sustainable work, the relaxing and inspiring moment is to spend time with my wife, my two children and our two dogs. We are having a great time exploring Europe these days. We have gotten to see so many new countries and cities. It’s a beautiful and inspiring place with so much to see and experience. We do a lot of hiking, walking and bike riding, and I like to unwind by reading, playing video games and sometime playing pool if I get the chance.”

For the Next Generation Aspiring to Become Engineers

“What I can tell you is that if you want to be successful in anything, you need to work at it, no matter how much talent you may have. I think you need to find something you like, that challenges you, that you enjoy when you succeed, and that you can do for a long time when it comes to sustainability again. So, you can learn and develop new skills to have a successful career. Also, try to develop a big picture for what the team you are working on is trying to do/accomplish. It might take a thousand or a million words to describe it all, but you need to develop the image and keep it up to date and in your mind.

The biggest mistake I see is that people get so caught up trying to meet some small requirement or some interim/individual goal they forget about what they are trying to accomplish overall and deliver a solution that works in isolated conditions but won’t work at all for the overall development in the real world. Finally, you need to think deeply about the problems you are trying to solve and examine them from all sides and all angles. That is one thing I am good at, I don’t think so quickly, but I think deeply, and I don’t let myself get boxed in to the easiest or most obvious solution that way when other solutions might be more sustainable.”

• Precursors The main raw material such as gas for semiconductor thin film deposition processes.