SEMI Europe Honors Outstanding Leadership in Microelectronics

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Imec President and CEO Luc Van den hove received the 2021 European SEMI Award and Soitec CEO Paul Boudre the 2021 Special Service Award at the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium Europe (ISS Europe 2022). Established more than 30 years ago, the European SEMI Award recognizes key players in the global manufacturing supply chain, highlighting their leadership excellence and strategic contributions that led to critical advances in the semiconductor industry.

“We applaud Luc Van den hove and Paul Boudre for their excellent work and outstanding research and development leadership and contributions to the European semiconductor community,” said Laith Altimime, president of SEMI Europe. 

“The strong bonds between SEMI and imec go back a long way,” Luc Van den hove said. “We both understand that our industry’s grand challenges can only be addressed successfully if the entire ecosystem joins forces. In light of today’s economic and geopolitical turmoil, I feel – more than ever – committed to step up as a fierce proponent of regional and global collaboration. With this ambition in mind, I accept this year’s European SEMI Award with great pleasure.”

Van den hove received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the KU Leuven in Belgium. He joined imec in 1984, starting his research career in the field of silicide and interconnect technologies and became manager of the imec micro-patterning group (lithography and dry etching) in 1988. In 1996, Van den hove was appointed department director of unit process step R&D, and in 1998 vice president of the silicon process and device technology division. In January 2007, he was appointed imec EVP and COO and has served as president and CEO of imec since 2009. 

“I am very honored and grateful for this recognition by SEMI and my peers for a career entirely dedicated to semiconductors,” said Paul Boudre, CEO of Soitec. “Over decades, I had the chance to learn every day from interacting with amazing customers, suppliers and partners around the globe. I am also proud of what we achieved together, positioning semiconductors as a strategic industry in Europe. Above all, I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to lead exceptional women and men who have enabled sustainable innovations that change the daily lives of billions of people.”

Boudre holds a graduate degree in chemistry from France’s Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Toulouse. He joined Soitec in 2007 as Director of Sales, Marketing and Business Development. He has been the CEO since 2015 and a member of the Board of Directors. During his 10 years at KLA-Tencor, he led the group’s European operations, then served as VP for Europe and the U.S. He held management duties in the industrial units of IBM Semiconductor (now part of GlobalFoundries), STMicroelectronics, Motorola Semiconductor (now part of NXP Semiconductors), and Atmel. Boudre has been active in the semiconductor industry for 30 years.

Nominations for the 2022 SEMI European Award are open. Please see award guidelines. Prior European SEMI Award recipients hailed from companies including CEA-Leti, Technical University of Dresden, Catholic University of Leuven, STMicroelectronics, EV Group, Infineon, and the Fraunhofer Institute. See the list of past SEMI European Award recipients.