Imec is a great place to do ground-breaking, yet industrially-relevant research in the semiconductor arena. Imec do that with many experienced researchers and engineers, but also with starting PhD students. Imec issues twice per year (in April and in December) a list with new projects for PhD students. PhD students selected for these projects will typically carry out their research at IMEC in Leuven. While imec pays and drives the research topics of the projects, imec cannot grant PhD degrees, as it is an independent research institute, and not a university. In most of these projects, the PhD degree comes from KU Leuven, and the supervising professor is typically an imec employee with a part-time professor position at KUL.

In the domain of reliability, Imec have several quite interesting vacancies. Interested candidates can apply via the link https://www.imec-int.com/en/application-for-admission-imec-phd-programme before December 15, 2018.

·        Thermal aspects of advanced back-end of line (BEOL) structures

·        System level thermal modeling and optimization of integrated CMOS-Si photonics Optical Transceivers

·        Alternative solder materials for electronic devices working at low/cryogenic temperatures

·        Mechanical strength characterization of nanoscale material

·        Impact of Process Variability on Nano-Interconnect Dielectric Breakdown

·        Simulation and experimental validation of metal diffusion and voiding in nano-interconnects