MSAL Alumni Received UMD ECE Distinguished Alumni Award

The University of Maryland Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has announced the recipients of this year’s Distinguished Alumni Awards.  This year’s alums have a variety of exceptional backgrounds across multiple disciplines.  They were nominated by ECE faculty members in recognition of their significant accomplishments. Dr. Wen-Hsien Chuang, MSAL and ECE alumnus, Ph.D. '05 has been selected as the recipient of the 2025 UMD ECE Distinguished Alumni Award. Dr. Chuang was nominated by his Ph. D. advisor, Dr. Reza Ghodssi. 

Wen-Hsien graduated with his Ph.D. in May 2005 and is working in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) as the Director in charge of More-Than-Moore Technology Quality and Reliability Division.

Before assuming this new role, Chuang directed the Specialty Technology Quality & Reliability Division at TSMC, where he oversaw its latest specialty technologies, including non-volatile memory, Power Management IC, CMOS image sensors, and silicon photonics. As part of the world’s first dedicated semiconductor foundry, his team has successfully qualified several of their state-of-the art technologies for mass production. He has also contributed greatly to the Chips Act Industry Advisory Committee with his knowledge of the metrology needs of the future semiconductor industry. 

Prior to joining TSMC, he was a senior manager at Intel, where he contributed to silicon process and circuity debugging and physical failure analysis. He also traveled worldwide to support establishing local laboratories, contributing to Intel’s success in advancing semiconductor technologies. He was honored with the Intel Achievement Award, the company’s highest honor.

At UMD, he was a member of the MEMS (Micro-electro-mechanical system) Sensors and Actuators Laboratory (MSAL). For his doctoral research, he worked with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD on the first study conducted on the electro-mechanical characterization of MEMS actuators at cryogenic temperatures. The results of this study paved the way for the development of MEMS micro shutter arrays used in the James Webb Space Telescope.

Chuang holds 13 US patents in areas that have advanced fields such as silicon process debugging, silicon photonics technology, silicon backside power rail technology and three-dimensional integrated circuit packaging (3DIC). 

 More information can be found on the UMD ECE News (8 - Oct / 2025)