Igor Khandros, CEO of FormFactor, a Livermore Calif., advanced wafer test developer, will receive the 2006 SEMI Award for North America for his innovations in parallel testing, microspring contactors and wafer probe cards. The award will be presented at the Semicon West 2006 Standards and Technical Awards Reception tonight at the San Francisco Marriott, SEMI announced Monday.

"The technical innovations developed by Dr. Khandros have helped reshape and redefine our industry’s approach to test," said Stanley T. Myers, president and CEO of SEMI.

Khandros founded FormFactor in 1993 and continues to serve as its CEO and director. Since founding FormFactor, he has taken the company from a private startup to a publicly-traded entity with industry-leading revenue growth rates. His vision for semiconductor testing continues to drive technological innovation while ensuring a strong bottom line, SEMI said. It said his pioneering work in test is responsible for lowering test costs through "parallelism," which is the testing of multiple die simultaneously; increasing yield through the development of the microspring -- a very robust, low-force contactor with excellent electrical performance characteristics resulting in superior test yields and high uptimes; and enabling roadmaps, which have led the way toward meeting customer requirements for tighter pad pitch, high pad density and lower power.

Before founding FormFactor, Khandros was vice president of Development at Tessera, which he co-founded. He has an MS degree in metallurgical engineering from Kiev Polytechnic Institute in Kiev, Russia, and a PhD in metallurgy from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.

Past recipients of the SEMI Award for North America include Walter Benzing and Mike McNealy (1979) for epitaxial silicon deposition; Kenneth Levy (1983) for automated photomask inspection; Jean Hoerni (1985) for the planar process; Dan Maydan, Sass Somekh and David Wang (1988) for plasma etch; and Bruce Deal (1998) for silicon oxidation.

International Standards Awards

On Monday, SEMI presented the Karel Urbanek Memorial Award to two industry technologists for their contributions to the development of standards for the semiconductor and related industries. John Davies of TD Systems, an Irving, Texas-based provider of protocol connectivity devices, was recognized for his leadership in taking the new ISC Subcommittee on Audits and Reviews from birth to maturity in an expeditious manner. Supika Mashiro of Japan-based Canon Anelva Corp., a maker of equipment for the fabrication of semiconductors and LCDs using vacuum technology, was recognized for "creating an invaluable tool for obtaining consistent, complete and error-free records of Technical Committee actions essential for effective operation of the ISC Subcommittee on Audits and Reviews." The award is named in honor of the late Karel Urbanek, who was cofounder of Tencor Instruments and a member of the SEMI board of directors and a leader of the SEMI standards program.

For more information, visit: www.semi.org