Samaun Samadikun

Born on April 15, 1931 in Magetan, Indonesia, Samaun Samadikun was an accomplished Indonesian scientist, professor, a visionary engineer and educator.

Career

Samadikun began his college education in Electrical Engineering at ITB in 1950. Later he continued his post graduate at Queen Mary University of London and gained master degree in Nuclear Engineering. Samadikun also studied in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, earning his M.Sc in 1957 and Ph.D. in 1971.^[1]

Samadikun held a patent (US Patent No 3,888,708), along with his colleague at Stanford University, K.D Wise, for the Method for forming regions of predetermined in silicon in 1975.^[2]

Samadikun started his career as a lecturer at the ITB in 1957 teaching Electromagnetic Field Theory. He was promoted as the full professor of Electronics Engineering in 1974 and was chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department at Bandung Institute of Technology. Having served as the first director of the Center for Inter-University (PAU) Mikroelektronika ITB from 1984 to 1989, he took a sabbatical from ITB to sit in central government department position as Director Binsarak DIKTI in 1973-1978 and later as the Director-General of Energy at Department of Energy and Mines from 1978 - 1983. He later was appointed as the head of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in 1989 to 1995.^[1] During his tenure, he received a number of awards.^[3]

After finishing his term at LIPI, Samadikun decided to return to teach in the Department of Electrical Engineering at ITB and to do research at PAU Mikroelektronika. He was appointed as ahe Principal Researcher at PPAU Mikroelektronika ITB since 2001 until his death in 2006.^[1]

Vision

In the 1970s, he proposed to Indonesian government and industries at the time to do research and development of microelectronic devices domestically. His proposal and dream never got realized until his death. During his life, he was never tired to dream that someday there would be chip fabrication industries built in Indonesia. He was also active in the planning of Bandung High Tech Valley (BHTV) which tries to replicate the success of California's Silicon Valley in Indonesia.

Personal life

In 2004, Samadikun felt ill but went on surgery successfully in Perth, Australia in October 2004. After his return from Perth, he went back to continue to work at Bandung Institute of Technology as chief scientist and researcher. He suffered from the same health problem in September 2006 and after underwent intensive health care for some time, he died on November 15, 2006 at 9:51 AM at MMC Hospital due to brain cancer in Jakarta and buried the next day at the Taman Makam Pahlawan Kalibata after staying at LIPI Jakarta.^[4]

He was married to Roesdiningish with two sons. One is called Samawi Samadikun, and a grandson named Samarfi Samadikun who's studying at Mentari International School.

References