Education

It is with my deepest gratitude that I was taught and mentored by Prof. Liu from 2006 to 2011. I still remembered vividly what Prof. Liu said in one of the undergraduate talks that I went to. He said he did not encourage smart students to join his group because they can fare well by themselves without too much help from the advisor. However, he would like to help highly motivated, hard-working average students to succeed, which was the reason that I joined in his lab.

In my first year as a Ph.D. student, I had experiences in RF power amplifier design using SiGe HBTs with tapeout service provided by Chip Implementation Center (CIC). Later I shifted my research focus to modeling of semiconductor devices. I joined a research project with AU Optronics to study polycrystalline thin-film transistors (p-TFTs). I helped to characteriz and model the flicker noise behavior of p-TFTs. After that, I started to model phase-change memory (PCM) using both macromodel and Verilog-A approaches. With this base knowledge, I assisted Prof. Liu in a two-year research project with Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) on SPICE modeling of resistive random access memory (RRAM). We built versatile SPICE models to faciliate ITRI engineers in memory chip design. At the same time, we also explored the physical mechanism of RRAM operation and published a paper.

Prof. Liu taught us to watch for trends in industry and think what we can contribute with our research. With his good ties to the industry, he helped most job-seeking students in his group secure a job after they graduate. I did my internship with TSMC in RF SPICE modeling department in the summer of 2006, and worked part-time at TSMC with RF characterization department in 2007. After acquiring the doctorate degree in 2011, I joined Technology Modeling Division (TMLD) in TSMC.

I was more than honored to graduate from the best electrical engineering departement (NTUEE) in Taiwan, which boasts famous alumni in academy and industry such as Prof. Chenming Hu (class of 1968) of UC Berkeley, Prof. Tso-Ping Ma (class of 1968) of Yale University, TSMC co-chief executive officer (co-CEO) Dr. Mark Liu (class of 1976), and TSMC chief technology officier (CTO) Dr. Jack Sun (class of 1975), and many other prominent leaders in various fields.

An interesting fact is that I was among one of the six undergraduates of NTU in 2006 (1 of 14 in Taiwan) to pursue Ph.D. degree without first getting a master degree. The year 2006 was the starting year that Taiwan's Ministry of Education certified the enrollment of Ph.D. program by undergraduates directly. [news report 1] [news report 2]

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