ISLI Chief Executive Proves He Has Bite
After just a week and a half into his new job, Tony Harker, the chief executive of the internationally renowned Institute for System Level Integration (ISLI), had already met most of the movers and shakers in the industry in Scotland.
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| Tony Harker |
His enthusiasm for his post is evident, his diary is crammed with appointments and you get the impression he doesn’t plan to spend much time admiring the views from his airy office in the Alba Centre in Livingston.
He said: “My predecessor Steve Beaumont did an absolutely excellent job in developing the academic side of the ISLI and bringing the Institute to where it is today. I hope to bring my skills and experience to take it on to the next stage and develop stronger links with industry – and I expect to be out and about a lot, not just in Scotland, but promoting the ISLI overseas as well.”
Tony, who started his career with National Semiconductor in Greenock, has over twenty years experience in semiconductor design and manufacturing making him the perfect choice to head up the ISLI, the first centre of excellence in system level integration to be established worldwide.
After 12 years with Fujitsu in Manchester, he moved to Cypress Semiconductor where he managed its UK design group. Promoted to director in 2003, he managed global technology, IP/chip-level and design productivity for international groups at corporate level.
He is evangelical about the importance of improving design skills in industry and is keen to build up the ISLI’s design support services for incubator and larger companies. To do this he hopes to be able to recruit additional engineers with the skills to help companies to move forward and build jobs for Scotland. “I will be looking for the sort of people who you can put in front of managers of multi-level global enterprises and who can demonstrate they can add value to the design environment,”
he said.
Another area he hopes to expand on is in emerging technologies like MEMS (micro electro mechanical systems), which he believes is an integral extension of microelectronics. He said: “Microelectronics and MEMS can’t survive in isolation from each other. I am very keen to put some MEMS modules in our masters course and in our distance learning material.”
He also plans to look more closely at distance learning and master classes for industry. “Not everybody can spare an engineer for a year to do a masters degree – it might be we make some of our distance learning courses more industry related or offer mini courses on the areas they are really interested in.”
Upskilling is absolutely essential, says Tony, if Scotland is to compete in the micro and opto electronics sector against emerging economies. He said: “The challenge is to maintain this country’s reputation for value add in the design cycle.
“Scotland has a lot of talented engineers in companies like Wolfson Microelectronics, Motorola and National Semiconductor and we have to build on this and move further up the design cycle to systems level and system partitioning.”
Harker hopes to meet most of the goals he has set for the ISLI within five years although he says nothing will be set in stone. “No-one knows how the industry will change over that time and we have to be responsive to changes in the cycle. This year everyone is looking towards China. Who knows where we will be focusing in the medium to long term future.”
Founded in 1998, the Institute for System Level Integration provides postgraduate education, professional training and research in system level integration and system-on-chip technologies. It is a collaboration of the computing science, informatics and electronic engineering departments of the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde, and Scottish Enterprise. Its aim is to support the development of electronics systems design worldwide and to encourage the exploration of new technologies through research.
Source: Scottish Development International
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