Alain is a Global Technical Lead and Senior Application Specialist TSI Incorporated, based in Aachen, Germany. With over 30 years in contamination control, cleanroom monitoring, and precision instrumentation, he supports global teams and customers in implementing advanced environmental monitoring strategies across pharmaceutical, semiconductor, and life science industries, including expertise in Facility Monitoring Systems (FMS) Software for real-time data management and compliance.


Before TSI, Alain held senior engineering and project management roles, leading complex cleanroom installations, particle monitoring systems, and facility validation projects. Known for blending technical expertise with practical application, he helps organizations achieve the highest standards of contamination control and regulatory compliance worldwide.


Alain is an active member of ISPE, PDA, IEEE, IRDS, and the UltraFacility community, contributing to industry best practices and innovation in contamination control.

TSI Incorporated

Dan’s almost three decades of experience as a facilities engineering manager, process engineer, design engineer, construction project manager and tool hookup design in the advanced technologies and semiconductor manufacturing industry has led to innovative solutions in his work. His innovations have resulted in industry-changing quality and cost savings breakthroughs, including defect reduction and innovative water reclaim and re-use systems. Dan is well established in the semiconductor industry as an Ultra-pure Water, UHP Chemical and Wastewater expert as shown in his leadership of industry roadmap and collaboration teams. He is certified by ASQ as a six sigma black belt. His roles include Co-Chair of International Roadmap for Device and Systems (IRDS) Yield Enhancement (YE) team, Co-Chair UPW SEMI Standards team, and UP Micro Conference Strategy Team. In addition to many industry publications, Dan also holds a patent for Reduction of Charging Induced Damage in Photolithography Wet Process.

Samsung Austin Semiconductor

Bernie Zerfas is a former facilities engineer at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the semiconductor industry with a primary focus on UPW and deionized water systems. Although his initial formal training was in chemistry and chemical engineering, he has had a wide variety of formal and informal educational experiences in a variety of technical disciplines. Mr. Zerfas is also an active member of the UPW sub-group of the ITRS; a recent area of focus has been organic and particulate contamination. His current other areas of responsibility include a spectrum of pollution control systems.

Dominic is the Intel Director of Construction responsible for managing Intel’s latest leading edge Wafer FAB construction Program at Intel’s Ocotillo Campus Phoenix AZ. This program is part of Intel’s $20b investment on the campus.


Dominic has 35 years’ experience in EPCC project delivery. 16 years working with EPCC firms Costain, Jacobs, Fluor, DPS and 20 years within Intel.


Dominic holds a BSc in Construction Technology and an MSc in Project management.




Intel

Beau Farmer is the Chief Technical Officer at TSI Incorporated, a global leader in precision research, analytical, and measurement instrumentation headquartered in Shoreview, Minnesota. He leads TSI’s efforts to identify and develop emerging technologies through collaborations with universities, small businesses, and industry partners, as well as through strategic acquisitions. Under his leadership, these collaborations have produced new products and government-funded projects such as nanoparticle monitoring instrumentation, miniaturized water-based condensation particle counters, and nanoparticle–protein binding research. Beau earned his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Cornell University in 1990 where his research focused on 

Defect Dynamics and Wear-Out in Ultra-Thin Dielectrics on Silicon

. Before joining TSI in 2003, he was a tenured physics professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), with joint appointments at Rutgers and Columbia Universities. He served as principal investigator on over $5 million in research funding, including NSF CAREER, EPA, and state-sponsored MEMS initiative awards. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and holds 16 U.S. patents.

I am a professional chemical engineer located in Kansas City. I focused on water and wastewater treatment design for the first 15 years of my career before transitioning into engineering and project management where I have mainly managed large water and wastewater projects for 10 years.

Kiewit

Dr. Altun is the co-founder and CEO of UNISERS AG, an ETH Zurich spinoff from Switzerland. UNISERS has been developing a wafer defect inspection and review tool with a sub-10nm detection limit. Dr. Altun has 15-year experience in nanotechnology and optical sensing. Prior to his position at UNISERS AG, he did a Ph.D. at ETH Zurich. He worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories (2011-2014) and Korean Institute of Machinery and Materials (2005-2010). He had his B.Sc. degree from METU (Middle East Tech. Univ.), Turkey and M.Sc. degree at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology).

UNISERS

With a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and graduate coursework in Optical and Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Steve brings over three decades of experience developing and applying advanced particle monitoring and contamination control technologies across semiconductor, aerospace, and defense sectors.


 (Random Hill Publishers, 2005), authoring Chapter 42: 

Particle Monitoring in Semiconductor Manufacturing

 (2nd ed. 2002; 3rd ed. 2015) and has written more than 100 technical papers and application notes.


His technical expertise has supported cleanroom monitoring programs for the Space Shuttle, James Webb Space Telescope, U.S. Air Force, and SpaceX Dragon Crew Module. He has also lectured at leading institutions including SUNY Albany, National Taiwan University, UCLA, University of Texas, and the University of Colorado, covering topics in particle physics and mechanics.


Today, as Global Product Manager at TSI, he continues driving innovation, shaping product strategy, and helping TSI lead the field in precision environmental monitoring and contamination control.

Brad Herbert is a Sr. Process Engineer with Jacobs. Brad’s areas of focus include water management, water reclaim, ultrapure water, wastewater, chemicals, mentoring, and staff development. Over the past 30 years, Brad has worked as a global facilities engineer, site facilities engineer, facilities manager, design consultant, project manager, and product engineer in the semiconductor and water treatment industries. He has led engineering efforts, managed projects, and supported operations throughout The Americas, Europe, and Asia. His work history includes onsemi, LSI Logic, AMD, IDC (CH2M), DeNora Water Technologies, Monsanto, and Sigma-Aldrich. Brad is a licensed Professional Engineer and has a B.S. Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri.

Jacobs

Microelectronics UPW Technical Director for Evoqua Water Technologies, LLC. Responsible for process development, optimization, troubleshooting and technical support of high purity water systems within the semiconductor, nanotechnology and solar markets. Also responsible for operating and maintaining an E-1.2 UPW system in the Evoqua Microelectronics Technology Suite. Has been with Evoqua (starting with IWT) for over 37 years in various roles responsible for developing, growing and supporting products and technologies within the Corporate and Industrial segments. These roles include; Product Manager, Process Development Manager and Applications Engineering Manager. Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, with emphasis on high-energy physics, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and located at the Evoqua office in Rockford, Illinois. Authored and co-authored several papers on topics including nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, advanced oxidation and particle removal for the semiconductor industry.

Xylem

Dr. Sriram (Ram) Ramamoorthy is a Supply Chain R&D Engineer/Technologist in Intel’s Fab Materials Organization managing specialty chemicals and filtration. Prior to this role, Ram was a senior process technology development engineer in Intel R&D fab in Oregon developing front end wet etch processes. Ram is an active member in IRDS and SEMI task forces and standards team. Ram received his Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY).

Latif joined Intel in 2005 as Microcontamination Engineer for the startup of 45nm process at Fab-32 in Arizona. He has been involved in four more process transfers to Arizona, including the latest 10nm startup. He is technical expert in Microcontamination, including AMC’s, with over 25 years of experience in environmental, semiconductor testing, AMC’s and other Microcontamination problem solving. Prior to joining Intel, Latif worked as a Research Scientist at Balazs Analytical and as a Technical Support Manager at ChemTrace. Latif has participated in collaborative efforts with many chemical and equipment manufacturing companies and organizations including, Sematech, Factory Mutual Research Corporation, in development of criteria for approval of materials suitable for use in semiconductor fabs.

Mike Schmidt

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