Events

Date: 26 May 2026   Time: 15:00 - 16:00     

Location: Graduate Centre GC205 + Online

Seminar Online Link

Synopsis

As the demand for high-speed data processing in AI and data centers grows, Silicon Photonics has emerged as a key technology to overcome the limits of traditional electrical interconnects. However, moving a device from a university lab to a commercial semiconductor "Fab" involves significant technical challenges. In this seminar, Dr. Young Chul Kim will share his experience transitioning from academic research to industrial process design at Samsung Electronics.
The seminar will cover:

• The Shift in Perspective: Why "Yield" is more important than "Best Performance" in mass production.
• Manufacturing Hurdles: Dealing with wafer-edge uniformity and 3D process constraints.
• Technical Complexity: Managing high-density implant steps and the unique requirements of curved waveguide patterns, which are rare in traditional logic design.
• Design Strategy: How engineers use layout workarounds to overcome equipment capacity limits.

This seminar aims to provide graduate students with a realistic view of modern semiconductor manufacturing and the practical engineering required to bring photonic innovations to the real world.

Biography

Dr. Young Chul Kim is a semiconductor professional currently specializing in Silicon Photonics process design at Samsung Electronics. He earned his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Ajou Univer-sity, where his research focused on ultrafast carrier dynamics and optoelectronic devices based on 2D materials like MoS2 and Graphene. Throughout his academic career, he published numer-ous papers on advanced optical imaging and nanofabrication . Now at Samsung's Foundry Divi-sion, he manages the transition of Silicon Photonics from research-level devices to High-Volume Manufacturing (HVM), focusing on yield management and complex process-design co-optimiza-tion.