Krishna Saraswat

Biography

Demonstrating visionary leadership for more than 30 years, Dr. Krishna Saraswat’s influence extends from fundamental research of silicon oxidation to system-level studies of wiring delays and chip performance. Consistently ahead of his time, he has made fundamental contributions on device structures, new materials and process technology of silicon devices and integrated circuits. These contributions have helped in continued scaling of device dimensions and improvement in the performance of integrated circuits. A Professor of Electrical Engineering and the Rickey/Nielsen Professor of Engineering at Stanford University in Stanford, California, Dr. Saraswat also serves as the Associate Director of the National Science Foundation / Semiconductor Research Corporation – Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Dr. Saraswat’s pioneering discoveries have repeatedly resulted in seminal advances for industry. One important example is his early 1980s work in WSi2 polycide gate MOS technology, in which he broke with prevailing trends to successfully focus on chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technology. He later developed an Al/Ti metallization process which quickly became an industry standard. Dr. Saraswat has provided invaluable leadership on interconnect scaling and modeling/simulation, notably through his farsighted delineation of the RC delay in an article two decades ago. In the late 1980s, he focused on single wafer manufacturing, developing equipment and simulators for rapid thermal processing, deposition and etching. Since the mid-1990s, Dr. Saraswat has been working on scaling MOS technology to nm range and on new concepts of 3-D integrated circuits with multiple layers of heterogeneous devices. He also is currently researching environmentally benign semiconductor manufacturing.

Born on 3 July 1947 in Pilani, India, Krishna Saraswat earned a bachelor of engineering degree in electronics from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India, and a master of science degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University. After two years with Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas, he returned to Stanford for his doctorate, completed in 1974, and to work as a research associate and subsequently as a professor in electrical engineering.

An IEEE Fellow and member of the Electrochemical and the Materials Research Societies, Dr. Saraswat has received the Electrochemical Society’s Thomas D. Callinan Award and two gold medals for undergraduate excellence while attending the Birla Insitute of Technology and Science. He is the author or co-author of more than 400 technical papers and is the recipient of several Best Paper Awards, including from the IEEE Electron Devices Meeting, the Annual Device Research Conference and from the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.

Dr. Saraswat resides in Saratoga, California, with his wife, Sonia and their two sons, Prashant and Vivek. His outside interests include traveling, hiking, photography, music and tennis.