Bart Keppens received an Engineer degree in Electronics in Leuven in 1996. His master thesis, together with his colleague Steven Servaes, ‘Transmission Line Pulsing (TLP) techniquefor analyzing ESD reliability’, performed at IMEC, Leuven, Belgium, receivedthe BARCO-award for best Industrial Engineer thesis in 1996. In 1996 Bartjoined IMEC and was responsible for device electrical characterization, supportfor the ESD group and for the Non Volatile Memories group for layout andtesting.
From May 2002 he joined SarnoffEurope, Belgium, solving ESD related problems for customers worldwide, first asESD engineer, later as technical leader, ESD design specialist. From 2006, Bartsupports the Business Development initiatives as Technical Director for ESD.After a management buy-out in June 2009, Sarnoff Europe became 'SOFICS -Solutions for ICs' where Bart is Director Technical Marketing working withsemiconductor companies worldwide.
Bart (co-) authored more than 25 peer-reviewed published articles in the field of ‘on-chip ESD protection and testing’ and ‘Non Volatile Memories’.
Invited papers on ESD solutions and TLP analysis techniques have been delivered at the RCJ ESD symposium in Japan every year between 2006 - 2012. He is member of the Technical Program Committee (‘TPC’) of the EOS/ESD symposium since 2003, member of the ESREF TPC in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2010 and member of the Taiwan ESD and Reliability conference TPC since 2010. Bart acted as a Workshop Panelist on ESD topics during various conferences (EOS/ESD Symposium and RCJ) and presented invited tutorials at Taiwan ESD and Reliability conference in 2008, 2010 and 2012. Bart holds several on-chip ESD protection design patents.