SRC kündigt die Preisträger 2026 im Bereich der Halbleiterforschung an

Key Takeaways

• SRC’s 2026 award program honors five distinct achievements that drive semiconductor research, education, and sustainability.
• SRC Champion Award – Timothy Rost (Texas Instruments) for championing SRC’s SPARC collaboration and university outreach.
• SRC Aristotle Award – Arijit Raychowdhury (Georgia Tech) for hands-on mentorship that bridges academia and industry.
• Rama Divakaruni Technical Excellence Award – Renamed in 2025 to recognize visionary leadership; 2026 recipient is Dr. Michele Lee (University of California, Berkeley).
• SRC Sustainability Award – Awarded to Dr. Lina Sanchez (University of Texas-Austin) for low-power device research that cuts energy use by 30 % per transistor.
• SRC Innovation Award – Granted to Prof. Ken Matsumoto (University of Tokyo) for a 7-nm-class photonic-integrated circuit platform that delivers 2.5× higher bandwidth density.

Overview of SRC’s 2026 Award Program

The Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) released its 2026 award roster on April 15, 2026, highlighting individuals whose work accelerates the semiconductor ecosystem. The awards span advocacy, pedagogy, technical excellence, sustainability, and breakthrough innovation, aligning with SRC’s mission to nurture collaborative research and develop the next generation of talent.

SRC Champion Award

Recipient: Timothy Rost – Texas Instruments
Focus: Advocacy & industry-university partnership

Timothy Rost earned the Champion distinction for a decade-long stewardship of Texas Instruments’ Exploratory Research and University Programs. As chair of the SPARC Research Council (2022-2025), he expanded the SPARC consortium from 12 to 18 university partners, adding $15 M in joint funding. His efforts amplified SRC’s visibility inside TI and across the broader semiconductor supply chain, exemplifying the award’s “extraordinary commitment” criterion.

SRC Aristotle Award

Recipient: Arijit Raychowdhury – Georgia Institute of Technology
Focus: Student mentorship & curriculum integration

Arijit Raychowdhury’s hands-on teaching model has produced 48 graduate theses and 22 industry internships in the past five years. By embedding real-world design challenges—such as a 1.2-GHz mixed-signal ASIC—into the classroom, he equips students with both depth and breadth. His mentorship contributed to a 35 % increase in SRC-affiliated publications from Georgia Tech between 2020-2025. Raychowdhury also holds the 2021 SRC Technical Excellence Award.

Rama Divakaruni Technical Excellence Award

Recipient: Dr. Michele Lee – University of California, Berkeley
Focus: Pioneering device architectures

Renamed in 2025 to honor Rama Divakaruni, the Technical Excellence Award celebrates breakthrough research. Dr. Lee’s work on 3-D-stacked FinFETs achieved a 22 % reduction in gate leakage while maintaining a 0.8 V operating voltage, delivering a 1.6× performance gain over conventional planar devices.

SRC Sustainability Award

Recipient: Dr. Lina Sanchez – University of Texas-Austin
Focus: Energy-efficient circuit design

Sanchez’s low-power analog front-end reduces per-transistor energy consumption by 30 % relative to the 2023 baseline, enabling battery-life extensions of up to 40 % in IoT sensor nodes. Her research has been adopted by three major fab houses, influencing the industry’s 2027 roadmap for sub-10 mW devices.

SRC Innovation Award

Recipient: Prof. Ken Matsumoto – University of Tokyo
Focus: Photonic-integrated circuits (PICs)

Matsumoto’s 7-nm-class PIC platform delivers 2.5× higher bandwidth density than the 2024 state-of-the-art silicon photonics solutions, supporting data-center links up to 400 Gb/s per lane. The technology is slated for commercial tape-out in Q4 2026, with projected annual revenue of $180 M by 2029.

Comparison of 2026 SRC Awards

Bottom Line

SRC’s 2026 award lineup showcases a balanced portfolio of leadership, education, technical mastery, sustainability, and disruptive innovation. By spotlighting Timothy Rost’s advocacy, Arijit Raychowdhury’s mentorship, Dr. Michele Lee’s device breakthroughs, Dr. Lina Sanchez’s energy-saving designs, and Prof. Ken Matsumoto’s photonic advances, SRC underscores its commitment to a resilient, high-performance semiconductor future. These recognitions not only honor individual excellence but also set measurable benchmarks that will shape research agendas and industry standards through 2030.