Executive Vice-President imec

© Ludo Deferm

Ludo Deferm received the Electrical Engineering Degree in Electronics and Mechanics in 1982. From 1982 till 1984 he was active as a device development engineer, doing research and teaching at the university of Leuven (KUL). End of 1984 imec was founded by the Flemish Government and as the team of process technology moved to imec, he also became an employee of the new research center on micro-electronics. In imec, in collaboration with the KUL, he started his PhD work on parasitic bipolars in a CMOS technology and related to that on the latch-up phenomena in CMOS circuits. He received his PhD degree in 1989 from the University of Leuven, Belgium.

In imec he was involved in the development of CMOS processes, new devices and process integration. He became head of Si Process Integration and proceeded his career as adjunct Vice-President of the Silicon Technology and Device Integration division. His major activities where focused on the development of BICMOS processes and scaling CMOS processes, with emphasis of using solid state physics to understand the behavior of scaled down CMOS and memory devices.

In 2000 he was appointed as Executive Vice-President of Corporate Business, IP, Corporate Communication, Venturing and Public Affairs.  The most important part of this job was to strengthen business development and corporate communication at imec, investigating and implementing new business models, creating a new group for increasing participation in Flemish and European public funded projects, and setting up new schemes for spin-off creation. In function of time, he became responsible for setting up governance structures and compliance activities.

He was board member of more than 5 spin-off companies of imec (Ansem, Xenics,Trinean, Indigo,….), helping them grow and preparing and realizing exit scenario’s together with the other board members.

He is also board member of the imec legal entities in Flanders, the Netherlands, Florida, Taiwan, China, and India, but this will fade out as today he is only part time active in imec.

Furthermore, in the Netherlands he is still board member of Foundation One Planet, a legal entity formed by University of Wageningen, Radboudt and imec and of HOLST in Eindhoven, a legal entity created by TNO and imec.

In Flanders he is board member of Health House, RVO-Society, Campus EnergyVille nv and Foundation EnergyVille and miDiagnostics.

He is also active in the steering committee of Solliance in the Netherlands, of Neuron research collaboration with KUL and VIB (NERF) and of a steering committee in Florida, a collaboration between BRIDG, Osceola County and imec Florida.

From 2021 until April 1st of 2023 Ludo Deferm is Executive Vice-President at imec, and responsible for the relation with Governments, specific strategic projects, frame agreements with the Flemish universities and advisor to the CEO.

During the last 15 years at imec he was responsible for the frame agreement between the Flemish Government and imec and was also the first point of contact in imec for the Flemish Government and its agencies.

On April 1st, 2023, his official pension age in Belgium was reached and since then he is still working 1 day a week for imec, has been elected fellow at UHasselt, and is still active in boards of Fidimec, Campus EnergyVille nv., Foundation EnergyVille, RVO-Society and in steering committee in Florida, Solliance and NERF. He is recently also appointed as board member of TU-Dresden.