Silicon Austria Labs (SAL) has been founded with the aim to become a top European research center for Electronic Based Systems (EBS). EBS are components, assemblies and devices with microelectronics and nanoelectronics, as well as embedded software. They are the technological backbone of digitization. In order to follow its mission and pursue cutting edge research for EBS and to cope with the arising challenges in this field, SAL requires well-trained experts from multiple disciplines of science, engineering and technology. Together with TU Graz, JKU Linz and AAU Klagenfurt, Silicon Austria Labs founded the SAL Doctoral College (SAL-DC).

The idea of SAL-DC
The Silicon Austria Labs – Doctoral College (SAL-DC) is a novel doctoral training programme for researchers focusing on the field of EBS. SAL cooperates with industry, academic and scientific partners on a regional, national and international level with the aim to build an excellent research network and ecosystem for EBS. Fellows benefit from the training in a highly international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral setting offered by SAL-DC to become future research leaders.
Pursuing cutting edge research in the field of EBS requires the combination of a multitude of skills, including intersectoral and interdisciplinary aspects. The SAL-DC training has been designed to cover this broad spectrum, leading to three major pillars of SAL-DC:
- Each candidate has to enroll into the PhD programme offered by the local partner university, depending on the chosen research topic and the corresponding supervising professor. Besides strengthening the general skills of the candidates, this enrollment ensures a training explicitly tailored to the needs and requirements in order to pursue research on the chosen topic. PhDs will thus benefit from the highly specialized knowledge of experts in their respective fields.
- Each candidate shall actively participate in knowledge exchange and collaborations among all the SAL-DC students. SAL fosters this knowledge exchange by offering a highly international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral EBS ecosystem. Furthermore, events such as e.g. a SAL-DC summer school on a dedicated topic will enhance collaborations among the students.
- Each candidate is encouraged to conduct short- to mid-term internships at academic or industrial partner organizations. PhD candidates are able to benefit from intersectoral professional training as well as develop and enhance their professional skills and network for future career prospects.
Participating institutes in the SAL-DC
- Institute for Communications Engineering and RF-Systems, JKU
- Institute of Computer Graphics and Vision, TUG
- LIT Cyber-Physical Systems for Engineering and Production Lab, JKU
- Electric Drives and Machines Institute, TUG
- Institute of Electronics, TUG
- Institute of Fundamentals and Theory in Electrical Engineering, TUG
- Institute for Integrated Circuits, JKU
- Institute for Machine Learning, JKU
- Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering, TUG
- Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems, AAU
- Institute of Signal Processing, JKU
- Institute of Software Technology, TUG
- Institute for Technical Informatics, TUG