Our History
Everywhere in our existence, there are electronics, from controlling spacecrafts to monitoring cell functions. Development in electronics is astonishingly fast, and yet we are only at the beginning. The completely dominant silicon technology has now come so far as to start reaching its physical limits, which means that one will soon not be able to go any further and will have to come up with something completely different. Unconventional ideas and intelligent solutions must therefore come forward if electronics are to continue to help us.
At the Division of Solid-State Electronics (FTE for Swedish Fasta tillståndets elektronik), we have been part of this fascinating development for a long time. The first holder of the chair of the discipline Solid-State Electronics (fasta tillståndets elektronik) was Per-Arne Tove, starting as a Laborator [1] in Electronics in 1958. The position was later transformed into a chair professorship. Prof. Tove passed away in 1988 before reaching retirement age. In connection with the installation of a new professor, the discipline was renamed to Electronics with specialisation in process and component technology. The holder of the chair professorship became Sören Berg.
Prof. Berg, professor 1990–2008, split the Division into Solid-State Electronics (FTE) and Signals and Systems (SOS), each with its chair professorship, to respond to the enormous expansion in the scope of electronics. The FTE Division was specialised in technology and processes for the production of microelectronics. At the end of the 1980s, state-of-the-art integrated circuits could feature about 1 million transistors. Today there are 100,000 times more transistors integrated per chip, 100 billion. The rapid development made the laboratory at the old site Teknikum inadequate. Building a new laboratory to continue our participation in the vast growth of microelectronics was an obvious choice. Prof. Berg and two colleagues took the initiative and founded the Ångström Laboratory, which was finally inaugurated in the Spring of 1997.
The majority of the research projects at FTE concerned knowledge development in thin films of various materials. The demonstration of a special type of power transistor and the development of solar cells based on thin-film technology were particularly successful.
Shili Zhang, professor since 2009, carried out a new split in connection with the department's reorganisation in 2020, which has led to a new division named Solar Cell Technology (SCT) at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.This new split also allows the new FTE Division to focus on technical solutions from individual devices to small systems in semiconductor electronics. Specifically, they concern Electronics for Life Science, Electronics for Healthcare Technology and Electronics for Next-Generation Computing.
References:
Per Ström. (2010). Nya professorer: installation hösten 2010. Acta Unversitatis Upsaliensis.
Summary:
- Per-Arne Tove, 1958-1988, Electronics (Elektronik)
Introduced in 1958 as laborator (old Swedish university position researcher/forskare)
- Sören Berg, 1990-2008, Electronics, with specialisation in process- and device technology (Elektronik, ssk process- och komponentteknologi)
In 1995, Sören Berg spun off a new discipline: Signals and Systems
- Shili Zhang, 2009-today, Solid-State Electronics (Fasta tillståndets elektronik - FTE)
In 2020, Shili Zhang spun off a new discipline: Solar Cell Technology