Helmut Brech was born in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, in 1968. He studied electrical engineering at the Universität Ulm, where he received the degree of Diplomingenieur in 1995. He then joined Siemens AG in Munich as a research engineer. In 1995 he also entered the doctoral program at the Institute for Microelectronics at the Technische Universität Wien as an external student, which he completed in 1998.