Fraunhofer IMPS bids farewell to long-serving Hubert Lakner

 

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dipl.-Phys. Hubert Lakner was the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems, headquartered in Dresden, for 21 years. At the same time, he held the chair for Optoelectronic Devices & Systems at the Institute for Semiconductor and Microsystems Technology at the University of Dresden. During this time, the institute developed into one of the most successful in the field of microelectronics in the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. On October 1, 2024, he took his well-deserved retirement.

Hubert Lakner joined the institute in 1998, which at the time was still a Dresden branch of the Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems IMS based in Duisburg. He quickly recognised the potential of the Silicon Saxony location and worked to establish the Dresden branch as the independent Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS. This was accomplished in 2003; Lakner took over the position of Institute Director. At the time of he took over, the institute had 160 employees and a budget of around 15 million euros. Today, Fraunhofer IPMS is an integral part of the Dresden and national semiconductor industry with over 500 employees and a budget that has quadrupled.

Expansion of Fraunhofer IPMS into one of the leading microelectronics institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft

Under the management of Hubert Lakner, the institute underwent continuous development, which was accompanied by an expansion of the institute's buildings and technical infrastructure. In addition to a comprehensive refurbishment of the buildings on Maria-Reiche-Straße during ongoing operations, a new clean room was inaugurated in 2007. Further modernisations followed successively. As early as 2012, Lakner demonstrated its innovative spirit and recognised the 300 mm wafer standard as the technology of the future. When the Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT), founded as a public-private partnership with Qimonda (then AMD) and Infineon, was no longer viable as an independent research facility following the bankruptcy of Qimonda, he took it over as a department within Fraunhofer IPMS. With his foresight, Lakner also focused on a close partnership with industry when it came to MEMS technologies: in 2016, the clean rooms were systematically converted from the 150 mm to the industrial 200 mm wafer standard.

In addition to the main Fraunhofer IPMS site on Maria-Reiche-Straße and the secondary CNT site in Dresden, the institute was pleased to open the “Integrated Silicon Systems” branch in Cottbus in 2018 and to establish the Fraunhofer Center Erfurt together with Fraunhofer IOF and IZI. With now four locations in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia, Fraunhofer IPMS has established itself as a major player in microelectronics in Germany.

Extensive networking for microelectronics in Germany and Europe

In addition to his management activities and professorship, Hubert Lakner was intensively involved in the entire microelectronics sector. For example, he was highly committed to the Fraunhofer Group for Microelectronics, which he chaired from 2011 to 2019. During this time, he coordinated strategy development within the group's eleven institutes, playing a pioneering role in the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. On his initiative, the Research Fab Microelectronics Germany (FMD), one of the largest associations of its kind in the field of R&D worldwide, was founded from the group in 2017 in cooperation with the Leibniz institutes FBH and IHP.

At the same time, Lakner was keen to promote microelectronics throughout Europe. Through his involvement in numerous committees, commissions and speaker activities, he networked himself and the industry throughout Europe. One highlight at European level was the establishment of the Heterogeneous Technology Alliance (HTA), a research collaboration between leading European research institutions CEA-Leti (France), CSEM (Switzerland), the Fraunhofer Group for Microelectronics (Germany) and VTT (Finland). Fraunhofer IPMS also maintains close cooperation with imec, based in Belgium, which is reflected in numerous joint projects, particularly in the field of quantum computing.

The fact that the European Chips Act is now in the starting blocks at the end of his term of office shows the continued relevance of Lakner's vision of a strong, joint European microelectronics for industry and research. Prof. Dr. Hubert Lakner has now retired as of 1 October 2024. There will be a call for applications to succeed him as head of the institute. Until then, Prof. Dr. Harald Schenk will act as the sole managing director of the institute.

About Hubert Lakner

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dipl.-Phys. Hubert Karl Lakner (born 1958) studied physics at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen from 1979 to 1986. After a year in industry working on the development of coating processes at the Gesellschaft für Oberflächentechnik m.b.H. in Schwäbisch Gmünd, he moved to the Gerhard Mercator University - GH - Duisburg in 1987, where he worked on research projects in the field of nanocharacterisation of mesoscopic compound semiconductor systems and received his doctorate in 1993. In 2003, Professor Lakner became the managing director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS. At the same time, he was appointed to a professorship for Optoelectronic Devices and Systems at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Technical University of Dresden.

 

Image: Fraunhofer IMPS
Caption: Prof. Dr. Hubert Lakner, who has been awarded the Fraunhofer Medal for his long-standing work, is retiring as Institute Director.

Source: Fraunhofer IMPS
www.ipms.fraunhofer.de