 He is best known for his pioneering work in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) technology since the late 1980s.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.