VPHA status update 28.5.2018 - 2018 Millennium Technology Prize and VPHA's next steps

The message below was sent to 76 VPHA contributors and 54 prospective contributors.  

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From: Puurunen Riikka
Sent: 28. toukokuuta 2018 16:31
To: info vph-ald.com
Cc: Puurunen Riikka <>; Jonas Sundqvist <>
Subject: VPHA status update 28.5.2018 - 2018 Millennium Technology Prize and VPHA's next steps

Dear VPHA contributors and prospective contributors,

This is the first status update of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) in year 2018 - earlier updates can be found in this link.

This update shares information on the following topics:

* The 2018 Millennium Technology Prize to Dr. Tuomo Suntola

* Words of thank to the community by Dr. Tuomo Suntola

* Puurunen’s invited talk at the ECS fall 2018 ALD symposium

* VPHA’s next step

With best regards,

Riikka Puurunen, VPHA’s voluntary coordinator

Dr. Suntola thanks the community for support and shares honor for the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize

Upon request, I transmit two messages from Dr. Tuomo Suntola, the awardee of the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize, to the ALD community.

First, Dr. Tuomo Suntola, who has had a busy week after receiving the prize on May 22, 2018, would like to thank the community for the broad support for the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize. This support, seen as forty supporting letters accompanying the nomination letter, has evidently had a significant role in strengthening the nomination. It was the pleasure and honour of the undersigned to spread information of the coming nomination at conferences in 2017 and to collect the supporting letters from esteemed scientists and technologists from various organizations around the world. In the words of Dr. Suntola in his speech at the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize ceremony:

” …  also, my sincere thanks go to the materials research and semiconductor processing community for the broad support behind the nomination.”

Second, Dr. Tuomo Suntola wishes that the prize will be experienced as credit for all actors in the field. Again, from his speech at the ceremony:

” … In the long run, I like to share the honor of the Millennium prize with all my colleagues having worked with me for the technology, the companies hosting and financing the development, and the co-operating universities and funding organizations supported the work. I like to thank all parties for the confidence and patience in getting through times when the goal looked distant. Finally, my special thanks go to the thousands of scientists and engineers who, finally, have made the technology a global success and an important part of our everyday life.”

It is an honour for myself and for the ALD History Blog as publication platform to transmit these messages from Dr. Tuomo Suntola to the community.

Espoo, Finland, May 27, 2018,
Riikka Puurunen
Associate Professor, Catalysis Science and Technology, Aalto University
Voluntary coordinator of the Virtual Project on the History of ALD

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Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA) - in atmosphere of Openness, Respect, and Trust

Congratulations Dr. Tuomo Suntola for the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize!

Dr. Tuomo Suntola has been awarded the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize for the Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) innovation. Warmest congratulations!   

• Press release by the Technology Academy Finland: https://taf.fi/2018/05/22/2018-millennium-technology-prize-for-tuomo-suntola-finnish-physicists-innovation-enables-manufacture-and-development-of-information-technology-products/

In the view of the undersigned, Virtual Project on the History of ALD (VPHA, http://vph-ald.com/) has been crucial for realizing the prize this year. Drafting the nomination letter was a natural continuation of the VPHA ALD history activities. The scientific publications created in VPHA describe the history of ALD in a balanced way and thus directly supported the prize. Wikipedia updates have been important in spreading the information beyond the immediate scientific ALD community. Thank you to all who have been involved in these voluntary works and for the numerous supporting letters provided!

• List of three scientific articles on the history of ALD, created within ALD, below.
• A longer list of ALD-history-related publications is available at http://vph-ald.com/ALD-history-publications.html. 
• Previous ALD History Blog posts related to the 2018 Millennium Technology Prize here.
• Some photos of the events on May 22 and 23 at the end of the post. 

Dr. Tuomo Suntola deserves the prize extremely well for his breakthrough pioneering accomplishments in ALD technology. Suntola has always supported the ALD history activities by the undersigned; likewise, it has been great to feel the widespread support in the international ALD community for the prize to Suntola. I hope that the prize can still further unite the ALD community and spread understanding of this enabling "hidden technology" to the general public.

Congratulations Tuomo Suntola; congratulations the rest of us in the ALD community; let us enjoy this moment!