The 21st in the series of Hilton Head Workshops on the science and technology of solid-state sensors, actuators, and microsystems will take place June 2 - 6, 2024 at the Sonesta Resort on Hilton Head Island, SC. This exciting multidisciplinary event has occurred biennially since 1984, and we look forward to observing Hilton Head's 40th anniversary by celebrating Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and microsystems successes over the past 40 years. Additionally, we would like to look ahead to the challenges and possibilities for our field in the next 40 years. Hilton Head Island, the beachfront workshop hotel, and the casual, comfortable, seaside environment with nearly all meals included allows for relaxed exchanges, collegial interactions, and many fruitful discussions. The Hilton Head Workshop has historically been a regional meeting for professionals living in North or South America as well as past attendees of previous Hilton Head Workshops. Since 2020, the meeting has been open to international colleagues beyond the Americas. We continue to welcome researchers worldwide to submit high-quality abstracts (contributed and late news) for consideration. International authors are encouraged to submit their abstracts for consideration and to participate in the workshop.
The Hilton Head Workshop draws 350-500 academic, industry, and government participants from diverse engineering and scientific backgrounds, including chemistry, materials science, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, physics, biology, bioengineering, etc. Previous workshops have provided a highly interactive forum for researchers to present and discuss recent advances in microfabrication technologies for sensing and actuation devices and microsystems for physical, chemical, and biological applications. Emerging from a global pandemic and tumultuous few years, the previous iteration of the workshop, Hilton Head 2022 focused on "Preparation and Prevention: Tackling our Grand Challenges," which explored the potential for MEMS to impact a variety of global issues and grand challenges and hopefully inspired our community while encouraging new collaborations and ideas.
Sunday starts with several simultaneous mini-workshops on current and forward-looking issues in the community. Throughout the week, the daily featured plenary speakers are prominent, internationally known researchers and visionaries who will bring breadth and depth to our discussion of challenges and opportunities for MEMS and allied technologies in the upcoming decades. In addition, the program will include invited speakers from the MEMS community, who will provide successful commercialization stories celebrating the success of MEMS in the last 40 years. On Tuesday, we further plan to have a MEMS and Sensors Industry session and a start-up competition for students pursuing commercialization.
This year, we hope to increase the participatory and networking success of this meeting by inviting all past, present, and future MEMS researchers to attend as well as submit abstracts and present papers in the following technical topics:
- New Devices or Microsystems
- New Sensing and Actuation Concepts
- High Performance Devices
- Devices with Substantially Improved Performance
- Device Fabrication and Testing
- Process Design and Modeling
- Device Modeling and Simulation
- Fabrication Technologies
- Materials and Material Processing
- Nanotechnology and Applications
- Testing Including Test Equipment and Methods
- Interface and Calibration Circuits
- Advanced Circuit Techniques
- System Integration and End Use Applications
- Component and Wafer-Level Packaging Technologies
- Assembly Materials and Processes
- Non-Electronic Interfaces to Devices
- Environmental Effects and Compensation Methods
- Reliability Testing and Methods
The workshop will be a single-session meeting, with ample time allotted for discussion of each paper, and with blocks of unscheduled time to encourage informal interactions among participants. The workshop has reserved several oral presentations and contributed poster session slots in the program for LATE NEWS papers. LATE NEWS papers, as submitted, will be accepted for presentation and will be published in the technical digest. LATE NEWS papers will be limited to two pages in length and must follow the submission procedure in the instructions. Manuscripts of papers presented in these sessions will be included in the Workshop Technical Digest. There will also be an OPEN POSTER session to encourage participants to informally discuss very recent results, work in progress, and results recently presented elsewhere. OPEN POSTERS will not be included in the Technical Digest. Please see LATE NEWS and OPEN POSTERS on this website for further information.
MEMS technology, devices, and systems have already revolutionized our world - from health care to the environment, to communication, to transportation, and in a number of other areas. Many of our successful accomplishments also complement National Academy of Engineering (NAE) pursuits toward identifying and addressing Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st century. We are hoping the Hilton Head 2024 Workshop presentations and discussions will further encourage our students, researchers, and industry colleagues to team up collaboratively around today's grand challenges and causes. Our hope is that we, as the device and technology community, will contribute significantly through active participation, mentoring, and inclusiveness to better serve people and our planet in the future.
We look forward to meeting with you!
