GETTING TO KNOW US
Getting to Know Dr. Samir Chaudhry
Dr. Chaudhry is the Design Enablement Director at TowerJazz. He joined Jazz Semiconductor in 2003 as a SPICE modeling engineer focusing on RF CMOS and Statistical Modeling and has been leading the Design Kit and SPICE Modeling activities for TowerJazz since 2008. He has been intimately associated with the Compact Modeling Council in developing industry standard compact models for circuit simulation. Prior to joining Jazz Semiconductor, he was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff with Bell Labs, where he worked on Technology CAD and device modeling for scaled silicon technologies. Dr. Chaudhry received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida. He has authored over 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals and conferences and has 14 patents in the field of silicon technology.
Q: Please tell us about your position, focus areas, etc.
A: My list of responsibilities is varied. I lead the SPICE modeling groups across TowerJazz and in this role we work with device and integration teams from our various business units to develop custom test-chips to characterize semiconductor devices such as MOSFETs, BJTs, inductors, transmission lines, resistors and capacitors. We then build compact modxels for the electrical behavior of these devices, so our customers can predict and optimize the performance of these devices in their circuits prior to fabrication.
In addition to this, the Design Kit group for the RF business unit and the Design Support group also report into my organization. The Design Kit team is responsible for developing parameterized cells and verification runsets that enable our customers to quickly synthesize their schematic circuit concepts into a manufacturing ready blueprint for our fabs. The Design Support group assists our customers through every stage of the design flow – from evaluation to tape-out and if needed, we assist with failure analysis and yield improvement.
Q: What do you enjoy about your position and what challenges you?
A: I love the interaction with both the TowerJazz engineers as well as our customer design teams. As part of the Design Enablement team, we truly are the liaisons between the fab and our customers during the concept and design phase of our customers’ products. It is very gratifying to hear when our customers’ designs are functional at the first attempt, though there are times when unexpected effects occur and cause a chip not to function as designed. We then become “detectives” looking for the “root-cause.” Our focus then is to develop models for these previously unknown effects, so future designs can work around them.
Q: What is your focus this year from a business standpoint?
A: My team’s focus is to help the company live to up its commitments to our customers. Specifically, we are focused on getting design kits and models for our emerging technologies in RF SOI, SiGe BiCMOS and Power Management/Mixed-signal CMOS delivered to our customers on, or ahead of, schedule so our customers can meet their time-to-market goals.
Q: What are some of your hobbies?
A: I enjoy swimming and hiking and an occasional game of racquetball, though I have been losing more than winning lately.
Q: What is your favorite travel destination?
A: I have traveled all over the world for both business and pleasure, but my favorite destination is in the country where I grew up – Sikkim, India. It is off the beaten path, in the Northeast (Himalayan) part of the country. With high mountain peak passes, death defying curves on the mountain roads, gushing rivers with footbridges that sway tens of feet, Tibetan monasteries, and beautiful people, it is truly a spectacular travel destination.