We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Gaetano Palumbo has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Chips (ISSN: 2674-0729).

Prof. Dr. Gaetano Palumbo was born in Catania, Italy, in 1964. He received a Laurea degree in electrical engineering in 1988 and a Ph.D. degree in 1993 from the University of Catania. In 1994, he joined the University of Catania, where he has been a full-time professor since 2000. His primary research interests are in analog and digital circuits. He has co-authored four books by Kluwer Academic Publishers and Springer, in 1999, 2001, 2005 and 2014, respectively, and a textbook on electronic devices in 2005. He is the author of approximately 460 scientific papers in referred international journals (210+) and conferences. Moreover, he has co-authored several patents. He served as an Associated Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers in 1999–2001, 2004–2005 and 2008–2011, and of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs in 2006–2007. In the period 2011–2013, he served as a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE CAS Society. In 2005, he was one of the 12 panelists in the scientific disciplinary area 09—industrial and information engineering of the CIVR (Committee for Italian Research Assessment). In 2015, he was a panelist of the Group of Evaluation Experts (GEV) in the scientific area 09—industrial and information engineering of the ANVUR for the Evaluation of Italian Research Quality from 2011 to 2014. In 2003, he received the Darlington Award.

The following is a Q&A with Prof. Dr. Gaetano Palumbo, who shared his vision for the journal with us as well as his views on the research area and Open Access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take on the role as its Editor-in-Chief?

It has been an honor and a pleasure to be called on to serve as Editor-in-Chief for this new Open Access journal. What attracted me was the possibility to contribute with a specific high-quality cut, especially during the startup phase. Moreover, it was stimulating for me to start a new exciting adventure focused on the domain of high-quality research dissemination. Thus, my hope is that the journal will achieve a good reputation and can represent a good opportunity for many people working in this field.

2. What are your plans and vision for the journal?

My vision for the journal is to maintain a high quality in the paper standard and make the journal interesting not only for researchers but also for people that are interested in acquiring more knowledge on aspects of the integrated circuit (IC) domain, thus enlarging and increasing the attraction for a large group of readers.

I feel that the main scope of this journal is the dissemination of novel research and knowledge (conducted in a rigorous way), as well as the state of the art in terms of IC technologies, design, test and production, thus allowing Chips to become a leading and influential journal in this field. The journal includes a wide range of topics, such as:

• Analog, digital and mixed-signal domains;
• Baseband frequencies, RF (radio frequency) and microwave frequencies;
• All levels of abstraction (from the device or transistor level to the system and architecture level);
• Typical IC products, such as microprocessors and microcontrollers, memories, ASICs (Application-Specific ICs), FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), SOCs (System on Chips) and NOCs (Network on Chips);
• All scales of integration, from small (SSI) to giga scale (GSI), passing through MSI (medium scale of integration), LSI (large scale of integration), VLSI (very large scale of integration) and ULSI (ultra large scale of integration).
• The manufacturing (fabrication and packaging) of chips;
• The testing and evaluation of chips;
• Materials for chips.

Of course, the topic includes new and exciting areas, such as the design of integrated flexible electronics, Cry-CMOS (cryogenic CMOS), or the most established integrated optoelectronics and photonics. Additionally, looking from a different perspective, due to the pervasiveness of IC, the journal should give space to both established and more recent topics on IC specifically devoted to the following fields:

• Automotive;
• Power management;
• Energy harvesting;
• Environment;
• Consumer electronics;
• Information and computing;
• Communication networks;
• IoT (Internet of Things);
• Artificial intelligence;
• Sensors;
• Cyber–physical systems;
• Quantum computing;
• Biological, chemical and medical applications.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

Nowadays, ICs (i.e., chips) are not only spread over every branch of both traditional and advanced science and technology but are finding applications and are affecting every aspect of our life.  

As is well known, according to Moore’s law (an empirical relationship that for the last eighty years has correctly forecasted a doubling of the number of IC transistors every two years), the main features of ICs follow an exponential behavior, as in the case of complexity (i.e., the number of transistors, architecture, interconnections and communication) or computing power.

As a consequence, in the last half century, the same exponential trend can be found in the research fields and applications of ICs, which are continuously increasing in both number and variety. This explains why also in the future the IC domain will represent a highly growing field, where another journal, which provides a novel high-quality communication platform, can be important.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?

Open Access journals are surely a good and interesting opportunity to share research which is gaining more and more space, relevance and credibility. An Open Access journal allows us to reach a wider range of readers, especially those who cannot afford to pay for journal subscriptions. Thus, an Open Access journal, on the one hand, will make research findings more accessible, since it provides a more convenient way to access scientific results and knowledge. On the other hand, it provides high visibility and timely impacts for the author’s community. Moreover, as a collateral benefit, an Open Access journal, such as Chips, provides no restriction on the length of papers and offers the possibility to include supplementary materials in an electronic file format. Finally, care should be devoted to avoiding the risk that payment for the publication of a scientific manuscript implies that the paper should be published independent of its quality.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Gaetano Palumbo in his new role as founding Editor-in-Chief of Chips and wish him every success in helping the journal achieve many milestones.