Michael A. Huff

Dr. Michael Huff came to the NSF with over 40 years' experience in semiconductor technologies in both industry and academia.  His technical specialties include: process step development and process integration, device design and implementation, systems design, and semiconductor materials and packaging development.

Dr. Huff founded the MEMS and Nanotechnology Exchange (MNX) at Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) over 25 years ago, which is a program established with DARPA funding to create the world's first truly semiconductor foundry network that continues to provide services to the R&D and industrial communities.  

The MNX serves as a model for semiconductor foundry networks (and hubs) established under the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act legislation.    

To date, the MNX has provided semiconductor design and manufacturing services to over 1,250 organizations across the United States and has performed over 3,200 process sequences for a wide variety of applications including: consumer electronics, industrial products, medical devices, defense industries, oil and gas exploration, environment sensing, earthquake sensing, and others.  Most MNX customers are commercial organizations ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to start-ups. The MNX also provide implementation services to leading academic institutions, Federal Labs, and others.

Dr. Huff previously served on the faculty in the Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics department at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) where he worked on a number of high-profile R&D efforts including the development of the first chip-based insulin micro-pump that received national attention on the front page article in the LA Times, Cleveland Dispatch, and was featured in a book entitled "One Digital Day" by Rick Solomon.

He also served as the Executive Director of the Microfabrication facility at CWRU that was a state-of-the-art semiconductor R&D center used by CWRU staff and students, regional academic institutions, and commercial companies.  

Previously, Dr. Huff was a Fellow at Baxter Healthcare Corporation where he managed an R&D and product development business unit and led the development of a number of products sold in medical device markets.  He also performed technical due diligence on companies that Baxter was interested in acquiring.

Dr. Huff held the position as the principal design engineer at Raytheon Corporation where he developed the radar front-end components and systems for the Patriot Missile system.   He also was a successful advocate for Raytheon to use integrated circuit technologies in the Patriort Missile platform and was on the team that first successfully demonstrated an operational Patriot Missle system platofrm to the DoD at White Sands, New Moxico.

Dr. Huff has authored and co-authored a number of peer-reviewed papers and conference papers and has authored or co-authored 12 books on semiconductor manufacturing with the latest volume entitled: "Process Variations in Microsystems Manufacturing," published by Springer/Nature in 2020.

He has served on several technical committees for conferences, DoD workshops, the Founding Chair of the SEMI semiconductor trade association working group dedicated to development of MEMS semiconductor standards, and a Founding Co-Chair on the ASTM working group on semiconductor standards.

He holds over 40 issued United States patents and has another dozen patents pending in semiconductor technologies including device design and manufacturing processes.

Dr. Huff holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) from MIT, a S.M.in EECS from MIT, a S.M. in Material Science and Engineering (Electronic Materials) from MIT, and a B.S. (highest honors) from GA Tech.