He received the Laurea degree in electrical engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy, in 1979. In 1983, 1984, and 1991, he was a Visiting Scientist at the Center for Integrated Systems, Stanford University, Stanford, California.

From 1985 to 2001, he was a consultant at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ. Since 2002, he is Professor the University of Bologna, where he has been the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Cesena Campus (2008-12) and the Head of the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi” (2012-15).

From 2005 to 2011 he has been the Director of Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per la Nanoeletronica, a Legal Consortium grouping 11 University Groups and today leader in Europe in the Electron Device modeling field.

From 2005 to 2015 he has been a member of the CATRENE Scientific Committee and since 2007 he has been a member of the Managing Committee of AENEAS, the private partner of the Public-Private ECSEL European Technology Platform.

Since 2014 he is the Director of the SINANO Institute, grouping 23 European Institutes active in the field of nanoelectronics. He is a Fellow of IEEE and a Member of the Academy of Sciences of Bologna Institute.

His research interests, in cooperation with research centers and companies such as Bell Labs., Philips, Infineon, ST Microelectronics, AMAT, IMEC, CEA-LETI, include the physics, characterization, modeling, and fabrication of silicon solid-state devices and integrated circuits.