Professor Rok-hyun Baek of POSTECH's Department of Electrical Engineering received a Minister of Education Award for contributions to industry–university cooperation, recognizing his promotion of university technology commercialization through joint industry research and his contribution to national strategic technology competitiveness.

He transferred a leakage-current improvement technique for Gate-All-Around FETs, described in the source as a leading logic technology used in 18-angstrom-node mass production as of 2025.

Recommended by the National Research Foundation of Korea and selected by the Ministry of Education, he received the award at the opening of the 2025 Industry–University Cooperation EXPO at EXCO in Daegu on October 29, 2025.

The source describes GAA FETs as leading device/process technology in the logic sector, which accounts for 70% of the global semiconductor industry, ushering in the angstrom era after the nanometer era. It states that only Samsung, TSMC, and Intel can produce them and lists high-performance AI/mobile applications including NVIDIA Rubin Ultra, AMD Instinct MI450, Apple A20, Tesla Dojo and Optimus, and Intel Panther Lake.

November 2025