Ara Philipossian, Ph.D.

Dr. Ara Philipossian has been a professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Arizona since 2001, where he holds the Koshiyama Chair of Planarization. Since its establishment in 2004, he has also been the Co-Founder, President, and CEO of Araca Incorporated, the premier provider of services and equipment to the polishing and planarization industry worldwide. He received his BS, MS, and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University in 1983, 1985, and 1992, respectively. From 1992 to 2001, he was the Materials Technology Manager at Intel Corporation (Santa Clara, CA, USA), responsible for the development, characterization, implementation, and sustaining of new and existing CMP and post-CMP cleaning consumables, low-k dielectrics, and electroplating chemicals. From 1986 to 1992, he worked at Digital Equipment Corporation (Hudson, MA, USA) as a process development manager focusing on thermal silicon oxidation, diffusion, LPCVD of dielectric and gate electrodes, and wafer cleaning technology. Dr. Philipossian has authored approximately 180 archival journal publications and 210 conference proceedings articles. He holds 36 patents in semiconductor processing and device fabrication.