Short bio: Umesh K. Mishra (Fellow, IEEE) received the B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India, in 1979, the M.S. degree from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, in 1980, and the Ph.D. degree from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, in 1984, all in electrical engineering. He has been with various laboratory and academic institutions, including Hughes Research Laboratories, Malibu, CA, The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and General Electric, Syracuse, NY, where he has made major contributions to the development of AlInAsGaInAs HEMTs and HBTs. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Associate Dean of the School of Engineering, University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). He has authored or coauthored over 450 papers in technical journals and conferences. He holds nine patents. His current research interests are in oxide-based IIIV electronics and IIIV nitride electronics and opto-electronics. Dr. Mishra was a recipient of the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, the Hyland Patent Award presented by Hughes Aircraft, the Young Scientist Award presented at the International Symposium on GaAs and Related Compounds and the 2007 David Sarnoff Award from the IEEE. He was elected to the US National Academy in 2009.

Abstract:
The dominance of Silicon (Si) has been due to three major factors:
1. The existence of the miraculous dielectric; Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) which has exhibits low bulk charge density and ultra-low interface and bulk traps allowing both electron and hole inversion layers enabling CMOS
2. A near-ideal band gap (1.1eV) which allows wide-spread use at room temperature and the ability to contact both the conduction and valence bands with a variety of metals
3. The large number of applications has enabled vast economies of scale which has made the Si technology vastly affordable.

The one major drawback of Si is that it has an indirect band gap and hence cannot emit light efficiently. Also, its band gap, though perfect for many applications, is still limited for several applications that require the switching of high voltages and currents at a high speed. This second requirement is represented by markets such as microwave power transmitters and power conversion for efficient power supplies, photo-voltaic applications, and motor drives. This problem of light emission and of microwave amplifiers (in part) has been filled traditionally by compound semiconductors such GaAs and InP based semiconductors. However, even these semiconductors had limits most especially not being able to deliver the blue, green and white emitters, so essential in display applications. This blue-green-white void was filled by the emergence of the Gallium Nitride-based material (including Indium Gallium Nitride; InGaN). This has enabled the emergence of high-efficiency Solid State Lighting. The potential application of GaN has expanded to the microwave application and even to power conversion markets where the critical advantage that it brings to the problem is again that of higher efficiency. This expansion of markets allows the potential of large economies of scale which can make for the first time a compound semiconductor affordable like Si is today.

GaN based emitters are now available in LED TVs, traffic signs (green and white), Blu-Ray DVD players (using blue lasers), microwave power amplifiers for WiMax applications . It is now being actively researched for power conversion which opens large new markets which will establish its place as the next dominant semiconductor after Silicon.