The Solid State Institute is an interdisciplinary research unit at the Technion; faculty members from the Faculties of Physics, Electrical Engineering, Chemistry and Materials Engineering work at the Institute. The Solid State Institute was established after the Technion decided to lead an initiative to establish a solid state institute in Israel, which researchers from the Hebrew University and the Weizmann Institute also thought was necessary. Alexander Goldberg, the president of the Technion at the time, led the initiative, and a small but very functional building was built thanks to a donation from the Rosen family from Philadelphia. The first significant studies carried out in these years were carried out by a research group from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, led by Prof. Itzhak Kidron, the father of the field of microelectronics in Israel.