Awardee Interviews | Biography: Gary W. Rubloff

Gary W. Rubloff


Gary W. RubloffGary W. Rubloff received his B.A. in Physics magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1966, his M.S. in 1967 and his Ph.D. in 1971 in Physics from the University of Chicago. He held a postdoctoral position in Physics at Brown University from 1971 to 1973.

In 1973 he joined IBM Research, Yorktown Heights, NY, as a Research Staff Member in the Physical Sciences Department, where he worked on surface and interface science. In 1984-85 he served as Technical Assistant to the IBM Research Vice-President for Logic and Memory, and from 1985 to 1991 he continued his research while serving in several capacities as Manager of exploratory materials and processing in the Silicon Technology Department. From 1992 to 1993 he was Manager of Thin Film Process Modeling in the Manufacturing Research Department, and in 1992 he became Professor Adjunct of Electrical Engineering at Yale University.

From 1993 to 1996 Rubloff was Associate Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Advanced Electronic Materials Processing and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina State University, focusing on real-time process sensing, simulation, optimization, and control. In 1996 he joined the University of Maryland as Director of the Institute for Systems Research and Professor in the Department of Materials and Nuclear Engineering, and in 1999 became an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. 

Rubloff has published over 130 papers, holds 16 patents and 6 IBM Invention Achievement Awards, and is a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society and the American Physical Society. He is the founding chairman of the AVS Manufacturing Science and Technology Group, and he serves on the Metrology Technical Working Group for the Semiconductor Industry Association, contributing to the National Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors in 1994 and 1997. He has been active in professional society work, including the Board of Directors of the AVS, Executive Committees of the AVS Electronic Materials and Processing Division, the APS Materials Physics Division, and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology. He has long been active in civic affairs, including 11 years service as an elected Member, Vice-President, and President of a local Board of Education in New York State.

Rubloff's research has included solid state physics, surface physics and chemistry, interfaces, semiconductor materials and processing science and technology, process diagnostics and metrology, dynamic simulation of continuous and hybrid systems, and manufacturing science. His research in semiconductor processing has emphasized the elucidation of chemical and physical mechanisms involved in interfacial silicide formation, polymer surfaces and interfaces, surface cleaning, thermal oxidation, and chemical vapor deposition, in which he has pioneered the exploitation of integrated ultra-high vacuum process environments and in-situ surface, interface, and gas phase diagnostics. More recently he has concentrated on the application of real-time, in-situ sensor techniques and dynamic simulation to such processes, particularly for equipment and process design optimization, environmentally-conscious manufacturing, and advanced process control. He is also pursuing a comprehensive approach to simulation-based software environments for education and training.