(from left to right) UCSI’s Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment Lecturers Rahimie Mustafa and Manickam Ramasamy, Head of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, Assistant Professor Dr John Tan and Professor CM Tang.

This technical talk was attended by 15 UCSI University postgraduate students and 10 UCSI University staff. The speaker, Professor CM Tang, pioneered the development of the Very-Large-Scale Integration (VLSI) design industry in the Asia Pacific region in 1984.

He was the Vice President and General Manager of the Digital Media Business Unit of Huahong Semiconductor International, Shanghai from 2006 to 2007. Prior to that, he was the Regional Director for AT&T Bell Laboratories (which later became Agere Systems) from 1990 to 2006.

He has served as an Adjunct Associate Professor in Nanyang Technological University in Singapore from 1986 to 2005. His design career spans over CMOS technologies ranging from 3.5um to 0.065um, with chip scales ranged from ~10k gates to > 10M gates (>40 Million transistors) SOCs.

Professor Tang took the participants of the workshop through the odyssey of a VLSI engineer through decades of technological changes to the current state-of-the-art developments.

From the invention of the solid state transistor in Bell Laboratories through the entrepreneurial spirit and innovativeness of the Silicon Valley, the Western Economies have led the world at the frontiers of Moor’s Law and the semiconductor technology revolution.

Today China is very determined to take over the semiconductor world through sheer economic power. They will no doubt succeed. Professor Tang highlighted the importance of Malaysian graduates preparing for this hi-tech industry.

UCSI University’s Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department Head Assistant Professor Dr John Tan Teng Hwang said, “It is good to see experts in the VLSI design industry like Professor Tang sharing his vast experience with our postgraduate students and staff.”

We look forward to having more collaborations with him on the IC Design industry and VLSI Design curriculum through Industry Advisory Panel discussions in the very near future. We want our students to be equipped with industry relevant knowledge and skills especially in the era of the 4^th Industry Revolution,” he added.