He studied electrical engineering at
MIT, where he wrote a PhD thesis on "velocity overshoot in deeply scaled
MOSFETs" (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistors), under supervision of Professor Dimitri A. Antoniadis. A
60nanometer silicon MOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) was
fabricated by Shahidi with Antoniadis and Henry I. Smith at MIT in 1986. The device was fabricated using
X-ray lithography. Shahidi joined
IBM Research in 1989, where he initiated and subsequently led the development of
silicon-on-insulator (SOI)
complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology at
IBM. It was called the SOI Research Program, which he led at the
IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center. He was a key figure in making SOI CMOS technology a manufacturable reality and enabling the continued
miniaturization of
microelectronics. Early SOI technology had a number of problems with manufacturing, modeling, circuits, and reliability, and it was not clear that it could offer performance gains over established technologies. As director of silicon technology at IBM Research, he was researching
lithography technology in the early 2000s. In 2004, he announced plans for IBM to commercialize
lithography based on light filtered through water, and then X-ray lithography within the next several years. He also announced that his team were investigating 20 new
semiconductor materials. He is currently the director of Silicon Technology at the
IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. ==References==