Aug. 7, 2020 12:18 UTC

Todd Younkin Replaces Ken Hansen who is retiring after leading SRC the past five years.

DURHAM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), a leading global semiconductor research consortium, today announced the appointment of industry veteran Todd Younkin as President and Chief Executive Officer. Younkins appointment was made by SRCs Board of Directors. Younkin will start transitioning to his new role on August 18, 2020.

Younkin is currently Executive Director of SRCs Joint University Microelectronics Program (JUMP), where he has engineered, launched, and led all programmatic aspects of the public-private partnership between industry, government, and academia. That research initiative emphasizes the advancement of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Materials Science to secure continued U.S. thought leadership in the global semiconductor industry.

Prior to SRC, Younkin held senior technical positions at Intel Corporation and brings a wealth of knowledge in technology innovation, including extensive research and development expertise spanning Intels 180nm to 5nm nodes. While at Intel, Younkin was an assignee to IMEC, an international semiconductor R&D hub, gaining invaluable experience by working closely within the consortium to help move Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) into commercialization. He holds a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida.

The challenges facing the semiconductor industry today are as exciting and demanding as ever before. At the same time, AI, 5G+, and Quantum Computing promise to provide unfathomable gains and benefits for humanity. The need for research investments that bring these technology advances to bear is paramount, said Gil Vandentop, SRC Chairman of the Board. Todd has demonstrated an ability to bring organizations together, tackle common research causes, and advance technologies into industry. He has a clear vision to take SRC to the next level. I am delighted that Todd has accepted this challenge and will become the next SRC CEO.

I am honored to lead SRC, a one-of-a-kind consortium with incredible potential and exceptionally talented people. Together, we will deliver on SRCs mission to bring the best minds together to achieve the unimaginable, said Younkin. SRC is well-positioned to meet our commitment to SRC members, employees, and stakeholders by paving the way for the semiconductor industry. Our strong values, unique innovation model, and unflinching commitment to our members are core SRC principles that we will maintain as we move forward.

Ken Hansen, SRCs current President and CEO, indicated earlier to the Board that he would be retiring in 2020 provided that a solid succession plan was in place. SRCs Board of Directors has conducted a structured search process for CEO succession, working closely with Hansen to develop internal candidates and identify external candidates. That process culminated with SRCs Board deciding to appoint Younkin.

During the past five years, we have rejuvenated SRC by significantly expanding the size and scope of our research investments while adding 11 key industry partners, said Hansen. I leave knowing SRC will always be a part of me, that SRC has made me a better leader, and with great confidence in the choice of Todd Younkin to succeed me. I look forward to working with him on a smooth transition and wish him great success in his new role.

On behalf of the entire Board of Directors I would like to thank Ken for his extensive contributions to SRC and our industry, said Vandentop. Kens loyalty, commitment, and deep personal integrity have served as an example for all of SRC.

Hansen will leave his current position on August 31, 2020. During his tenure as CEO of SRC, Hansen led a turnaround that reestablished SRC as the leading research consortium in the semiconductor industry and culminated in record financial performance.

Todd is the right person to lead SRC in the coming years, said Mukesh Khare, previous SRC Chairman of the Board and Head of the Search Committee. I look forward to working closely with him and SRCs leadership team to build an even stronger company, one well positioned to meet the research needs of the future.

SRC is a major driving force behind the university research that spurs innovation in the semiconductor industry and throughout our economy, said John Neuffer, President and CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). We thank Ken for his years of service and dedication to our industry and look forward to working with Todd as we continue to advance semiconductor research priorities with policymakers in Washington.

About SRC

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC.org), a world-renowned, high technology-based consortium, serves as a crossroads of collaboration between technology companies, academia, government agencies, and SRCs highly regarded engineers and scientists. Through its interdisciplinary research programs, SRC plays an indispensable part to address global challenges, using research and development strategies, advanced tools and technologies. Members of SRC work synergistically together, gain access to research results, fundamental IP, and highly experienced students to compete in the global marketplace and build the workforce of tomorrow.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200807005221/en/

Continued here:
Todd Younkin Appointed President and CEO of Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) - BioSpace

The COVID-19 pandemic has opened the eyes of many Americans to the danger the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses to our supply chain, especially for critical items such as personal protective equipment (PPE) and lifesaving pharmaceuticals. When COVID was allowed to spread rapidly throughout China and the world, Chinese Communist Party officials hoarded supplies of PPE and banned their export to other countries a move they were able to make because of their stranglehold on that supply chain.

And just as frightening, the United States sources approximately 80 percent of its active pharmaceutical ingredients from overseas, including the Peoples Republic of China. Through one of its propaganda outlets, the CCP even threatened to impose export controls on pharmaceuticals needed to fight the coronavirus the party allowed to spread. Can you imagine what would have happened if they had followed through?

Thats why its important that we secure critical medical supply chains now. We also need to secure our technological supply chains before it is too late and that starts with re-establishing the United States as a true leader in the production of advanced semiconductors.

Semiconductors are the tiny chips that serve as the brains behind your toaster, your smartphone, all the way to fighter jets and, in the very near future, they will serve as the brains behind the innovations of tomorrow such as 5G, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence (AI). America is already a leader on semiconductors, with the U.S. industry accounting for nearly 50 percent annual global market share and with American companies at the forefront of advanced semiconductor chip design. But our leadership is being threatened.

The Chinese Communist Party is spending billions of dollars to become the leader in the production of advanced semiconductors, posing a serious threat to our economic and national security. Unless we take bold action, the United States may lose its edge in making advanced semiconductor chips to our adversary and endanger our technological future.

Thats why I worked with Democrats and Republicans in both Chambers of Congress, including my House colleague Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA), and my Senate colleagues Senator John Cornyn and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), to introduce the CHIPS for America Act. By providing funding and support throughout the semiconductor supply chainfrom research and development to productionour bill will supercharge investment, create thousands of jobs, and safeguard national security. I am proud a version of the CHIPS for America Act passed on the House floor as an amendment to this years National Defense Authorization Act, and will work with my colleagues in the Senate to get this to the presidents desk.

Existing semiconductor ecosystems like ones in Austin should be further energized by this bill, which will have a cascading effect on the local economy. And with the Armys Future Command, the University of Texas and the high-tech community already based in Austin, our city is ideally situated for this industry to grow and thrive here. Semiconductor manufacturing jobswhich net an average salary of $150,000 per yearcreate nearly five additional jobs in the broader economy. We have already seen this effect in Austin thanks to the Samsung Semiconductor facility the most significant foreign direct investment in this country. Beyond this fabrication facility, there are dozens of semiconductor companies that conduct research, design, or testing of semiconductors in my district, and dozens more that use a semiconductor to power a finished product, such as Apple, which builds its MacBook Pro computer in Austin.

Now is the time to act to preserve American leadership in the development and manufacturing of the technologies of the future.

McCaul, R-Austin, is lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and chairman of the China Task Force.

Go here to read the rest:
McCaul: Semiconductors are the future. Building them should stay in Texas. - Austin American-Statesman

A short line down, slow and steady, followed by five more to complete a perfect hexagon.

As a 15-year-old in Madrid, I loved my science classes. I had a particularly inspiring chemistry teacher who challenged us to memorize the entire periodic table. I cherished going to the labs, experimenting with bubbly liquids changing color as I heated up my flask steamy substances changing phase before my eyes and drawing funny stick diagrams of molecules.

Decades later, in 2015, I would see the same perfect hexagon in an image of a molecule taken with the Nobel Prize-winning scanning tunneling microscope designed by IBM in the early 1980s. As a teenager, I believed stick diagrams were platonic ideals, an easy way to represent the realm of the small. And here I was, staring at a very real molecule of pentacene a row of five hexagons. I was transported back to my teenage years, when I peeked into the future. Suddenly, the future was right there in front of me.

Today, the lead scientist of that project, IBM Research chemist Leo Gross, and other researchers around the world routinely image molecules. They can even snap a picture as molecules change their charge state, and before and after a chemical reaction.

But its not just chemical imaging thats making leaps and bounds. The entire scientific method is getting turbocharged. Thats partly due to cutting-edge tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computers futuristic machines that look like steampunk golden chandeliers. Its also due to the changing way we do science. At last, the world is starting to grasp the importance of public-private collaborations to scientific discovery. And the COVID-19 pandemic is a catalyst to several such successful global partnerships.

We should keep the momentum. Classical high-performance computers (HPC), AI and quantum computing on their own are powerful, but the potential is even greater. To truly embrace the Future of Computing, policymakers, industry and academia have to create an infrastructure in which these technologies work together, boosting and complementing each other.

At the nodes of this infrastructure should be strategic national and international partnerships, with industry, academia and governments working jointly to accelerate progress, better prepare for and address global threats, and improve the world. We need more scientists in leadership positions in government and industry. And we need to ensure seamless links between policymakers and researchers, in regular times and during global emergencies.

One global collaboration we should create is what I suggest calling the Science Readiness Reserves (SRR). This organization would help rapidly mobilize researchers who are experts in various global disasters, connecting scientists worldwide with organizations that have cutting-edge technology, such as supercomputers or quantum computers.

The impact will touch every sector of our society and economy. We have all the ingredients to make it happen: bits, neurons and qubits. The secret sauce? They have to work together.

IBM Q System One, the world's first fully integrated universal quantum computing system

Image: IBM

Take pentacene, that simple molecule I once loved to draw, five perfect hexagons connected side to side. With 22 electrons and 22 orbitals, its among the most complex molecules we can simulate on a traditional, classical computer.

But there are billions upon billions of molecular configurations more possible combinations for a new molecule than there are atoms in the universe.

Sifting effectively through this vast chemical space would allow us to rapidly find a specific molecule and create a new material with the properties we want. This could unlock endless possibilities of material design for life-saving drugs, better batteries, more advanced prosthetic limbs or faster and safer cars, advancing healthcare, manufacturing, defense, biotechnology, communications and nearly every other industry. This design ability would replace our centuries-old reliance on serendipity in material discovery something weve been through with plastics, Teflon, Velcro, Vaseline, vulcanized rubber and so many other breakthroughs. Even graphene the atom-thick layer of carbon and the thinnest, strongest material known was discovered by (informed) chance, when physicist Kostya Novoselov found discarded Scotch tape in his labs waste basket.

Material design has long been a slow and iterative process. Typically, researchers jog between experiments, theory and simulations between a computer, perfecting calculations that approximate the behavior of unknown molecules, and a lab, to test if the molecules work as predicted, in a seemingly never-ending loop. Yes, high-performance computing (HPC) can simulate simple physical and chemical processes. Yes, advances in HPC have helped us pinpoint potentially useful molecules for lab tests. And yes, AI is increasingly valuable in screening novel high-performance materials, creating models to assess the relationship between the behavior of matter and its chemical structure, predicting properties of unknown substances and combing through previously published papers.

Still, it takes years to develop new materials. We need to inject quantum into the mix and get bits, neurons and qubits to play side by side.

We all deal with bits daily, from toddlers aptly manipulating tablets to autonomous robots clearing up the site of a nuclear power plant accident. Bits power smartphones, the brain scanner in our local hospital and a remotely controlled NASA rover on Mars. Artificial neurons, on the other hand, are mathematical functions that help AIs deep neural networks learn complex patterns, loosely mimicking natural neurons our brains nerve cells.

Then there are qubits, the fundamental units of information. They are bits oddball and much younger quantum cousins. Qubits behave just like atoms, with weird properties of superposition (being in multiple states at once) and entanglement (when one qubit changes its state at the same time as its entangled partner, even if they are light years apart). While a classical computer has to sift through potential combinations of values of a bit (0 or 1), one at a time, a quantum computer can make an exponential number of states interact simultaneously.

Molecules are groups of atoms held together by chemical bonds, and qubits are a great way to simulate a molecules behavior. For material design, quantum computing will add an invaluable extra dimension: accurate simulations of much more complex molecular systems.

Beyond material discovery, quantum computers will be a boon in any field where its necessary to predict the best outcome based on many possibilities, such as calculating the investment risk of a financial portfolio or the most optimal fuel-saving path for a passenger jet. This technology is just entering the phase of commercialization, accessible and programmable through the cloud.

At IBM, we believe quantum computers will reach the so-called quantum advantage outperforming any classical computer in certain use cases within this decade.

At IBM, we believe quantum computers will reach the so-called quantum advantage outperforming any classical computer in certain use cases within this decade.

When that happens, the world will no longer be the same provided we dont forget the secret sauce. Bits, neurons and qubits are powerful on their own, but working together, they will trigger a true technology revolution enabling a new Accelerated Discovery workflow, the default scientific method of the future.

In healthcare, this will impact drug discovery and lead to better personalized medicine, more efficient bioprinting of organs and rapidly developed vaccines. AI is already helping classical computers speed up medical imaging, diagnosis and data analysis. Quantum computers could, in the future, assist AI algorithms to find new patterns by exploring extremely high dimensional feature spaces, impacting fields like imaging and pathology. Together, HPC, AI and quantum computers have the potential to help us deal with dwindling food supplies, pollution, CO2 capture, energy storage and climate change. And this method will complement our own assessments of the risks of global threats that havent happened yet but could at any time.

This brings me to the other element needed to achieve the Future of Computing: national and international collaborations.

The pandemic has shown that public-private collaborations work, even when composed of industry rivals. Formed in March 2020, the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium brought together government, industry leaders and academic labs to pool computing resources to support scientists conducting COVID-19 research. The collaboration also offers critical data sharing and creativity exchange.

This is the kind of collaboration we need on a global scale, beyond pandemics. The boost to the scientific method powered by quantum, HPC and AI can help address and improve many elements of society, from cybersecurity to entertainment to manufacturing. It is time to also reimagine how we use the talent in our science and technology institutions, and explore new ways to foster collaboration. This is why the proposed Science Readiness Reserves could be so important.

Science is vital to our future prosperity and health. It always has been, and always will be. If ever we needed a wake-up call to recognize the urgency of science and the power of collaboration, the time is now.

The World Economic Forum was the first to draw the worlds attention to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the current period of unprecedented change driven by rapid technological advances. Policies, norms and regulations have not been able to keep up with the pace of innovation, creating a growing need to fill this gap.

The Forum established the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network in 2017 to ensure that new and emerging technologies will helpnot harmhumanity in the future. Headquartered in San Francisco, the network launched centres in China, India and Japan in 2018 and is rapidly establishing locally-run Affiliate Centres in many countries around the world.

The global network is working closely with partners from government, business, academia and civil society to co-design and pilot agile frameworks for governing new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous vehicles, blockchain, data policy, digital trade, drones, internet of things (IoT), precision medicine and environmental innovations.

Learn more about the groundbreaking work that the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network is doing to prepare us for the future.

Want to help us shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution? Contact us to find out how you can become a member or partner.

Excerpt from:
Why global collaboration is key to Accelerated Discovery - World Economic Forum

Quantum computing or the use of quantum mechanics to create a genre of next-generation quantum computers with nearly unlimited compute power has long been a concept stuck in the theory phase.

But quantum computing is starting to grow up. Recent breakthroughs in this emerging field such as Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) claiming to achieve quantum supremacy in late 2019 have laid the foundation for the quantum computing space to go from theory, to reality, over the next several years. This transition will spark huge growth in the global quantum computing market.

The investment implication?

Its time to buy quantum computing stocks.

At scale, quantum computing will disrupt nearly every industry in the world, ranging from finance, to biotechnology, to cybersecurity, and everything in between.

It will improve the way medicines are developed by simulating molecular processes. It will reduce energy loss in batteries through optimized routing and design, thereby allowing for the creation of things like hyper-efficient electric car batteries. In finance, it will speed up and optimize portfolio optimization, risk modeling and derivatives creation. In cybersecurity, it will disrupt the way we think about encryption. It will create superior weather forecasting models, unlock advancements in autonomous vehicle technology and help humans fight climate change.

Im not kidding when I say quantum computing will change everything.

And quantum computing stocks are positioned to be big winners over the next decade.

So, with that in mind, here are seven quantum computing stocks to buy for the next 10 years:

Source: rvlsoft / Shutterstock.com

Among the various quantum computing stocks to buy for the next 10 years, the best buy is probably Alphabet stock.

That is because many many consider Alphabets quantum computing arm Google AI Quantum, which is built on the back of a state-of-the-art 54-qubit processor dubbed Sycamore to be the leading quantum computing project in the world. Why? This thinking is bolstered mostly by the fact that, in late 2019, Sycamore performed a calculation in 200 seconds that would have taken the worlds most powerful supercomputers 10,000 years to perform.

This achievement led Alphabet to claim that Sycamore had reached quantum supremacy. What does this mean? Well, this benchmark is loosely defined as point when a quantum computer can perform a task in a relatively short amount of time that no other supercomputer could complete in any reasonable amount of time.

Many have since debated whether or not Alphabet has indeed reached quantum supremacy.

But thats somewhat of a moot point.

The reality is that Alphabet has built the worlds leading quantum computer. The engineering surrounding this supercomputer will only get better. So will Sycamores compute power. As that happens, Alphabet has the ability to through its Google Cloud business turn Sycamore into a market-leading quantum-computing-as-a-service business with huge revenues at scale.

To that end, GOOG stock is one of the best quantum computing stocks to buy today for the next 10 years.

Source: JHVEPhoto / Shutterstock.com

The other big dog in the quantum computing space that closely rivals Alphabet is IBM.

IBM has been big in the quantum computing space for years. But Big Blue has attacked this space in a fundamentally different way than its peers.

That is, while other quantum computing players like Alphabet have forever chased quantum supremacy, IBM has shunned that idea in favor of building on something the company calls the quantum advantage.

Ostensibly, the quantum advantage really isnt too different from quantum supremacy. The former deals with a continuum focused on making quantum computers perform certain tasks faster than traditional computers. The latter deals with a moment focused on making quantum computers permanently faster at all things than traditional computers.

But its a philosophical difference with huge implications. By focusing on building the quantum advantage, IBM is specializing its quantum computing efforts into making quantum computing measurably useful and economic in certain industry verticals, for certain tasks.

In so doing, IBM is actually creating a fairly straightforward go-to market strategy for its quantum computing services in the long run. Help this industry, do this task, really well.

And so, with such a realizable, simple and tangible approach, IBM stock is one of the most sure-fire quantum computing stocks to buy today for the next 10 years.

Source: NYCStock / Shutterstock.com

Another big tech player in the quantum computing space with promising long-term potential is Microsoft.

Microsoft already has a huge infrastructure cloud business, Azure. Building on that infrastructure foundation, Microsoft has launched Azure Quantum, a quantum computing business with potential to turn into a huge QCaaS business at scale.

In its current state, Azure Quantum is a secure, stable and open ecosystem which serves as a one-stop-shop for quantum computing software, hardware and applications.

The bull thesis here is that Microsoft will lean into its already huge Azure customer base in order to cross-sell Azure Quantum. Doing so will give Azure Quantum a big and long runway for widespread early adoption, which is the first step in turning Azure Quantum into a huge QCaaS business.

It also helps that Microsofts core Azure business is absolutely on fire right now.

Putting it all together, quantum computing is simply one facet of the much broader Microsoft enterprise cloud growth narrative. That growth narrative will remain robust for the next several years. And it will continue to support further gains in MSFT stock.

Source: Shutterstock

The most interesting, smallest and potentially most explosive quantum computing stock on this list is Quantum Computing.

The Quantum Computing bull thesis is fairly simple.

Quantum computing is going to change everything over the next several years. But the hardware is expensive. It likely wont be ready to deliver measurable benefits at reasonable costs to average customers for several years. So, Quantum Computing is building a portfolio of affordable quantum computing software and apps that deliver quantum compute power, but can be run on traditional legacy supercomputers.

In so doing, Quantum Computing is hoping to fill the gap and turn into a widespread, low-cost provider of easily accessible quantum computing software for companies that cannot afford full-scale quantum compute hardware.

Quantum Computing is just starting to commercialize this software in 2020, through three products currently in beta mode. Those three products will likely start signing up financial, healthcare and government customers to long-term contracts in the back half of the year. Those early signups could be the beginning of tens of thousands of companies signing up for Quantums services over the next five to 10 years.

Connecting the dots, you really could see this company go from zero dollars in revenue today, to several hundred million dollars in revenue in the foreseeable future.

If that happens, QUBT stock which has a market capitalization of just $12 million today could soar.

Source: Kevin Chen Photography / Shutterstock.com

Much like the other big tech players on this space, Alibaba is in the business of creating a robust QCaaS arm to complement its already huge infrastructure-as-a-service business.

Long story short, Alibaba is the leading public cloud provider in China. Indeed, Alibaba Cloud owns about 10% of the global IaaS market. Alibaba intends to leverage this leadership position to cross-sell quantum compute services to its huge existing client base, and eventually turn into the largest QCaaS player in China, too.

Will it work?

Probably.

The Great Tech Wall of China will prevent many of the other companies on this list from reaching scale, or even sustainably doing operations in, China. Alibaba does have some in-country quantum computing competition. But this isnt a winner-take-all market. And given Alibabas enormous resource advantages, it is highly likely that the company eventually turns into either the No. 1 or No. 2 player in Chinas quantum computing market.

Thats just another reason to buy and hold BABA stock for the long haul.

Source: StreetVJ / Shutterstock.com

The other big Chinese tech company diving head-first into quantum computing is Baidu.

Baidu launched its own quantum computing research center in 2018. According to the company website, the goal of this research center is to integrate quantum computing into Baidus core businesses.

If so, that means Baidus goal with quantum computing diverges from the norm. Others in this space want to build out quantum compute power to sell it, as a service, to third parties. Baidu wants to build out quantum compute power to, at least initially, improve its own operations.

Doing so will pay off in a big way for Baidu.

Baidus core search and advertising businesses could markedly improve with quantum computing. Advancements in compute power could dramatically improve search algorithms and ad-targeting techniques.

BIDU stock does have healthy upside thanks to its early research into quantum computing.

Source: Sundry Photography / Shutterstock.com

Last, but not least, on this list of quantum computing stocks to buy is Intel.

While Intel may be falling behind competitors namely Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) on the traditional CPU front, the semiconductor giant is on the cutting edge of creating potential quantum CPU candidates.

Intels newly announced Horse Ridge cryogenic control chip is widely considered the markets best quantum CPU candidate out there today. The chip includes four radio frequency channels that can control 128 qubits. That is more than double Tangle Lake, Intels predecessor quantum CPU.

In other words, Intel is the leader when it comes to quantum compute chips.

The big idea, of course, is that when quantum computers are built at scale, they will likely be built on Intels quantum CPUs.

To that end, potentially explosive growth in the quantum computing hardware market over the next five to 10 years represents a huge, albeit speculative, growth catalyst for both Intel and INTC stock.

Luke Lango is a Markets Analyst for InvestorPlace. He has been professionally analyzing stocks for several years, previously working at various hedge funds and currently running his own investment fund in San Diego. A Caltech graduate, Luke has consistently been rated one of the worlds top stock pickers by various other analysts and platforms, and has developed a reputation for leveraging his technology background to identify growth stocks that deliver outstanding returns. Luke is also the founder of Fantastic, a social discovery company backed by an LA-based internet venture firm. As of this writing, he was long MSFT.

Link:
7 Quantum Computing Stocks to Buy for the Next 10 Years - InvestorPlace

DURHAM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), a leading global semiconductor research consortium, today announced the appointment of industry veteran Todd Younkin as President and Chief Executive Officer. Younkins appointment was made by SRCs Board of Directors. Younkin will start transitioning to his new role on August 18, 2020.

Younkin is currently Executive Director of SRCs Joint University Microelectronics Program (JUMP), where he has engineered, launched, and led all programmatic aspects of the public-private partnership between industry, government, and academia. That research initiative emphasizes the advancement of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Materials Science to secure continued U.S. thought leadership in the global semiconductor industry.

Prior to SRC, Younkin held senior technical positions at Intel Corporation and brings a wealth of knowledge in technology innovation, including extensive research and development expertise spanning Intels 180nm to 5nm nodes. While at Intel, Younkin was an assignee to IMEC, an international semiconductor R&D hub, gaining invaluable experience by working closely within the consortium to help move Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) into commercialization. He holds a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida.

The challenges facing the semiconductor industry today are as exciting and demanding as ever before. At the same time, AI, 5G+, and Quantum Computing promise to provide unfathomable gains and benefits for humanity. The need for research investments that bring these technology advances to bear is paramount, said Gil Vandentop, SRC Chairman of the Board. Todd has demonstrated an ability to bring organizations together, tackle common research causes, and advance technologies into industry. He has a clear vision to take SRC to the next level. I am delighted that Todd has accepted this challenge and will become the next SRC CEO.

I am honored to lead SRC, a one-of-a-kind consortium with incredible potential and exceptionally talented people. Together, we will deliver on SRCs mission to bring the best minds together to achieve the unimaginable, said Younkin. SRC is well-positioned to meet our commitment to SRC members, employees, and stakeholders by paving the way for the semiconductor industry. Our strong values, unique innovation model, and unflinching commitment to our members are core SRC principles that we will maintain as we move forward.

Ken Hansen, SRCs current President and CEO, indicated earlier to the Board that he would be retiring in 2020 provided that a solid succession plan was in place. SRCs Board of Directors has conducted a structured search process for CEO succession, working closely with Hansen to develop internal candidates and identify external candidates. That process culminated with SRCs Board deciding to appoint Younkin.

During the past five years, we have rejuvenated SRC by significantly expanding the size and scope of our research investments while adding 11 key industry partners, said Hansen. I leave knowing SRC will always be a part of me, that SRC has made me a better leader, and with great confidence in the choice of Todd Younkin to succeed me. I look forward to working with him on a smooth transition and wish him great success in his new role.

On behalf of the entire Board of Directors I would like to thank Ken for his extensive contributions to SRC and our industry, said Vandentop. Kens loyalty, commitment, and deep personal integrity have served as an example for all of SRC.

Hansen will leave his current position on August 31, 2020. During his tenure as CEO of SRC, Hansen led a turnaround that reestablished SRC as the leading research consortium in the semiconductor industry and culminated in record financial performance.

Todd is the right person to lead SRC in the coming years, said Mukesh Khare, previous SRC Chairman of the Board and Head of the Search Committee. I look forward to working closely with him and SRCs leadership team to build an even stronger company, one well positioned to meet the research needs of the future.

SRC is a major driving force behind the university research that spurs innovation in the semiconductor industry and throughout our economy, said John Neuffer, President and CEO of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). We thank Ken for his years of service and dedication to our industry and look forward to working with Todd as we continue to advance semiconductor research priorities with policymakers in Washington.

About SRC

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC.org), a world-renowned, high technology-based consortium, serves as a crossroads of collaboration between technology companies, academia, government agencies, and SRCs highly regarded engineers and scientists. Through its interdisciplinary research programs, SRC plays an indispensable part to address global challenges, using research and development strategies, advanced tools and technologies. Members of SRC work synergistically together, gain access to research results, fundamental IP, and highly experienced students to compete in the global marketplace and build the workforce of tomorrow.

Read the original here:
Todd Younkin Appointed President and CEO of Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) - Business Wire