IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Spring 2017 - 84

The event was organized by Martin
Brox (Micron, Munich, Germany), Jonathan Chang (TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan),
Howard Luong (Hong Kong University
of Science and Technology), and Paul
Liang (MediaTek, Hsinchu, Taiwan).
The event was moderated by Riccardo Mariani (Intel, Hillsboro, Oregon).
The panel was somewhat outside the
scope of solid-state circuits, which
are at the center of ISSCC. Still-as the
panelists stated-it's an exciting time
to be in the automotive industry, and
the panel ended in a lively discussion.
The automation of driving will
not be a digital transition, but rather
new features will be added step by
step to those already available. Ultimately, autonomous driving can be
enabled by new circuit solutions extending today's AI implementations

in a power and efficient manner. Ideally, as one panelist stated, the brain
of a car should use the power of the
brain of a human-a challenging target for the industry but important
in particular in light of the introduction of electrified mobility. All
this compute power and sensor data
must not come while compromising
security, another interesting target.
Here, the automotive industry is
working on finding the best compromise between the required exchange
of information between the cars and
other parts of the environment while
still safe-guarding against intrusion
and verifying that information can
be trusted.
An interesting discussion centered
around the cost of fully enabling
autonomous driving. For optimized

safety and operation, investments
not only in the cars themselves are
required, but the overall infrastructure of roads and cities needs to be
adapted. Here, governments could help
absorb the costs, thereby kick-starting
the deployment and ultimately reaping
the benefits of safer and more energy
efficient driving.
At the end, the panel-as expected
by everybody and, of course, the organizers as well- could not answer the
question that started the evening.
We still don't know when we will
stop driving our cars. But the panel
conveyed the message that the solidstate community as gathered at ISSCC
can help to get closer to this goal.
-Martin Brox
Micron, Munich, Germany

Inaugural IEEE International Microwave, Electron Devices,
Solid-State Circuits Symposium 2016 in Penang, Malaysia

The inaugural IEEE International
Microwave, Electron Devices, SolidState Circuits Symposium (IMESS)
2016 was held 9-10 November 2016 at
the Penang Skills Development Center, Penang, Malaysia. The theme of
this year's symposium was "An Avenue to Explore IOT and 5G IMESS." The
event was coorganized by the IEEE
Electron Devices Society (EDS), Microwave Theory and Techniques Society
(MTT-S), and Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Penang Joint Chapter, and
the Penang Skills Development Center
(PSDC). IMESS attracted 210 engineers
and researchers from Malaysia and
overseas. The symposium was a free
event with strong support by Society
and industry sponsors, a dedicated
committee, and the Universiti Sains
Malaysia IEEE Student Branch. The
objective of IMESS was to provide

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2017.2689339
Date of publication: 21 June 2017

s p r i n g 2 0 17

a forum of technical topics related
to microwave and electron devices.
The two-day symposium consisted of
seminars on both days and an opportunity for students to visit Intel on
10 November 2016. Society sponsors
for this event were IEEE Region 10,
EDS, MTT-S, SSCS, the Institution of
Engineers Malaysia, PSDC, and Investin-Penang Berhad. In addition to the
seminars, there was also an exhibition of product and technology solutions by industry sponsors.
IMESS 2016 started with welcome
speeches by PSDC Chief Executive
Officer Muhamed Ali Bin Hajah Mydin
and Dr. Wong Peng Wen. Penang
Chief Minister The Right Honourable Tuan Lim Guan Eng officiated the
opening of IMESS 2016. In his opening speech, he shared the initiatives
by the state government to reinforce
Penang's position as an electrical and
electronic manufacturing hub. He
remarked that Penang should establish itself as a center of excellence for

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

science and technology with events
and establishments such as the Penang Science Cafe, the Penang Digital Library, the Penang Technology
Dome, German Dual Vocational Training, and the annual Penang International Science Fair. The Chief Minister
also emphasized that Penang shall
not be left behind in the transition
of Industrial 4.0, which includes big
data analysis, cloud computing, and
the Internet of Things.
After the opening speech, Dr.
Wong presented a souvenir to the
Chief Minster accompanied by EDS
Vice President Dr. M.K. Radhakrishnan, IMESS Vice Chair Dr. Jamuar,
Muhamed Ali, and diamond sponsors Alan Seah and Fong Hong Kee.
This was followed by a visit to the
exhibition hall where the Chief Minister interacted with the technology demonstrated. Of particular
interest to the Chief Minister was
the presentation "Catching Pokemon
in Munich" by Bob Ng Shiong Nien

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