Transmissions - Winter 1999

In this Winter 1999 issue...

As I think about the future of electrical and computer engineering, I am reminded of one of the oldest attractions at Walt Disney World: the "Carousel of Progress" originally created for the 1964 New York Worlds Fair. It consists of a set of stages around which the audience revolves -- demonstrating how one family's life changes with advancing electrical/electronic technology. We could do something similar with the electrical engineering profession, with an electrical engineer commenting on the wonders of the telephone in 1890, on the widespread use of electric light and electric motors in the 1920's, on the wonders of radio and the promise of television in the 50's, and on the computer revolution in the 1980's. As Disney discovered with Tomorrow Land, the hard part is looking forward into the future, to predict what the electrical engineer of 2010 will describe, even though this is only 11 years away.

The EE universe has been characterized not just in refinement of existing technology but by expansion of technology. Will that explosive expansion continue, or will EE become "mature" as a profession? I think the answer lies in how we define EE. Historically, we have not been limited by our name -- and by now many, perhaps most, electrical engineers do not directly work with electrons but with information in all its types and manifestations. While there are certainly more breakthroughs to be accomplished in the traditional areas of EE such as electronic materials, electrophysics, semiconductors and integrated circuits, there are many more to be conceived and then accomplished in information and knowledge processing, storage, and use. What does EE have to contribute to software and information engineering? Will these be part of the new EE "carousel" or not? I would appreciate hearing your thoughts.

John A. Orr, Professor and Head
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department

Four Corporations Inaugurate IC Design Center

Professor John McNeill inaugurated the New England Center for Analog and Mixed Signal IC Design at WPI (NECAMSID) with four founding corporations: Allegro, Analog Devices, EG&G Reticon, and Unitrode. The NECAMSID grew out of the success of the Analog/Mixed Signal Microelectronics Research Laboratory, in which several companies have sponsored graduate research and/or senior project work. All of the work is linked by a common theme: understanding fundamental performance limitations (speed, power, noise) in real-world circuits and systems. The National Science Foundation has recognized the importance of this approach, and has awarded two grants totaling over $350,000 for equipment and research in the Analog Lab.
(pictured: Vladimir Zlatovic, graduate student, Professor John McNeill and Wesley Blackstone, graduate student)

The center takes advantage of this theme by creating an environment in which sponsors may take maximum advantage of their shared interest in mixed-signal integrated circuit design. It will be supported by a collaborative contribution from IC design companies with a presence in New England. NECAMSID will support the complete mixed-signal IC design process: (1) design with full CAD support (schematic capture, simulation, layout, verification, and process simulation, when necessary), (2) fabrication (by MOSIS or member companies), and (3) test and characterization (full speed time / frequency domain testing, device characterization and modeling).

The center will be a tremendous enabling resource for students to "complete the loop" for the entire mixed-signal integrated circuit design process - exactly as it is done in industry.

Research and project topics will be proposed by the member companies. An industry advisory board composed of representatives from the member companies will determine which projects will be supported. Corporations see numerous benefits of NECAMSID membership, including close contact with graduating seniors and M.S. students, an increase in the pool of graduates with mixed-signal IC design experience, access to new technologies, and participation in leading-edge mixed-signal design research and networking with corporate and faculty leaders in the field.
(pictured: David Bowler, graduate student and Peter Lanyon of Allegro Microsystems)

Major Qualifying Projects currently underway in the Center include: "Hall Effect Sensor with Adaptive Correction for Amplitude Variation" (Allegro), " Instrumentation Amplifier Evaluation Board" (Analog Devices), "Class D Audio Amplifier" (Unitrode), and "Accurate Voltage Reference with Inaccurate Components (Allegro).

The Center is directed by McNeill, who has been on the WPI faculty since 1994. In 1997, he was awarded an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant. From 1983 to 1990, he worked in industry as a mixed-signal circuit designer and as a manager of design groups. His research interests include the design of integrated circuits for telecommunications and high speed imaging.

"As the design of integrated circuits increases in complexity to become the design of integrated systems," he says, "it becomes more necessary to guide design by connecting system-level performance to fundamental limits imposed by circuit-level considerations; for example thermal and shot noise. My goal is to prepare a design engineer who is knowledgeable in all stages of the design process, including manufacturing, testing, and the end customer's application."

Professors Yusuf Leblebici and Peter Lanyon are also key to the center's operation. Yusuf came to WPI last Spring (his background and research interests are described in a separate story in this issue). A member of WPI's faculty since 1966, Peter has advised numerous projects sponsored by local semiconductor companies. His extensive knowledge of semiconductor physics and device-level considerations is a critical element in rounding out NECAMSID's expertise at all levels of the integrated circuit design process.

Department Highlights

Faculty Notes

Several ECE faculty served as resident advisors at off-campus project sites: Jim Demetry in Puerto Rico; Fred Looft in Venice and at NASA-Goddard; John McNeill at Limerick, Ireland; Richard Vaz in Holland, and Peder Pedersen in Denmark.

Professor Alexander Emanuel was recognized by the IEEE Power Engineering Society for his distinguished service on the Power Instrumentation and Measurements Committee.

John McNeill received the Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding ECE Faculty award.

William Michalson received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor.

John Orr received the Outstanding WPI Faculty Award from the WPI chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. Also, Orr was elected Secretary-Treasurer of the National EE Department Heads Association

Richard Vaz received the Faculty of the Year Award from EMSEP (Excellence in Math, Science, and Engineering Program).

GPS MQP on the Discovery Channel

The WPI and ECE MQP activities received national attention when the GPS-based railroad accident avoidance project sponsored by the Providence and Worcester Railroad was featured on the show titled "Fatal Flaws" on the Discovery Channel. This project effort, which has spanned several years, was also featured in Popular Mechanics. The railroad project advisors have included Profesors Willy Eggimann, Bill Grogan, and Bill Michalson, who was primary advisor for the 1997-98 project.

Student research group, from left: Jonathan Day, William Brother, Prof. William Michalson, John Zaghi.

New Faculty Member in ECE

Dr. Yusuf Leblebici joined the ECE faculty at the Associate Professor level in D-Term last year. Yusuf's research and teaching expertise spans the areas of VLSI design, microelectronics and computer engineering. A native of Istanbul, Turkey, he received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Istanbul Technical University and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He was previously associate professor at Istanbul Technical University and an invited professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland. Yusuf and Professor Steve King of the University of Illinois have written a textbook on CMOS design which has received wide acceptance.

Peder Pedersen Named Satin Fellow

Inaugurating a new phase in the history of the Satin Fellowship, Prof. Peder Pedersen was selected as the ECE department's 17th Joseph Samuel Satin Distinguished Faculty Fellow for 1998-99. This award had been previously restricted to "newer" ECE faculty; eligibility has now been expanded to the entire ECE faculty.

A native of Denmark, Peder received a B. S. in electrical engineering from Aalborg Engineering College and an M.E. and Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Utah. He joined the WPI in 1987. Peder's research interests include modeling of acoustic measurement systems, ultrasound-based classification of atherosclerotic plaque and assessment of osteoporosis; characterization of rough surfaces based on scattered signals; and development of Doppler flow systems. He was co-founder of WPI's Denmark Project Site and has advised several projects in there.

Endowed by Joseph Samuel Satin Jr.’68 EE and his family, the award recognizes outstanding performance and promise for future contributions by a faculty member in teaching and research. The award includes substantial funds to support the recipient's teaching and research initiatives.

Peter Myers receives the Newell Award

Dr. Peter Meyers was honored with the 1997 Hobart Newell Award for Outstanding Contributions by an ECE Alumnus for 1997. He is the eighth annual recipient of this award. After completing his EE degree at WPI in 1946, Peter received his D.Phil. at Oxford University. He is one of WPI's two Rhodes Scholars.

In his work at Bell Laboratories, he received patents on the first electronic transistorized switch to replace electro-mechanical switching devices. During his distinguished career he was also employed at Motorola, Martin-Marietta, TRW and Magnavox before joining the National Research Council, where he was staff director of the Board on Radioactive Waste Management. Peter served on the WPI ECE Advisory Committee and has created the departmentt's first endowed graduate fellowship.

The Newell Award is named for the late Hobart H. Newell, who joined the faculty in 1921 and introduced modern electronics to the electrical engineering curriculum during his 44 years as a professor of electrical engineering. It was presented to Peter at the annual ECE faculty dinner on May 9, 1998. Previous recipients of the Newell Award include William Grogan, Paul Allaire, Ronald Zarella, Robert McIntosh, John Lott Brown, Donald Foley and Richard Freeman.

Dr. Robert McIntosh, EE '62, passed away on July 10, 1998. After graduating from WPI Bob received his master's degree from Harvard University, and his PhD from the University of Iowa. He pursued a distinguished career in the area of microwave remote sensing at the University of Massachusetts, and received many awards for his research and teaching. Bob was a member of the National Academy of Engineers and a Fellow of the IEEE. He was an active member of the WPI's ECE Advisory Committee, and received the department's Hobart Newell Award for outstanding contributions to the electrical and computer engineering profession.
All of Bob's colleagues at WPI valued his friendship and advice, and recall his untimely passing with great sorrow.

Students Receive Salisbury Prize, MQP, and Teaching Assistant Awards








PIMRC '98 Attracts Participants from 32 Countries

The Ninth IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC 98), cosponsored by WPI, IEEE, and several other major international societies and corporations, was held in Boston from Sept. 8-11, 1998. Kaveh Pahlavan was the Conference Organizer and Technical Program Chairman. John Orr was the events chair, and Peter Lanyon chaired registration. Several other WPI faculty, including John Rulnick and Christof Paar, presented technical papers. President Ed Parrish opened the conference with a welcome on behalf of WPI.

Approximately 500 top professionals from 32 countries participated in the conference, which included over 300 technical papers, five panel discussions, and 15 tutorial sessions. This conference provides a high level scientific forum for the exchange of information on new research results and commercial innovations from the international community of wireless communications researchers, equipment manufacturers, and service providers. Previously held in Finland, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Taiwan and Finland, the conference covers all areas of wireless and personal communications systems. (PIMRC 99 will be held in Japan.)

"PIMRC 98 delivered an outstanding program of technical papers, tutorials, invited lectures, and panel discussions that reflected the truly global view of emerging third-generation wireless networks in the mobile life of the third millennium," says Pahlavan. "We struck a balance between the diverse interests of academia and industry and added panels on the future of technology and marketing. And to encourage young researchers we awarded prizes for selected papers written and presented by students."

Topics addressed during the conference included wireless internetworking, wireless data networks, satellite networks, spectrum allocation and regulatory issues, deployment of wireless networks, fixed wireless access, smart antennas, wireless ATM and global issues facing the wireless communications industry.

ECE Research Grants set a Record

The ECE department set a new record in dollar value of research grants in 1997-98, and recorded the largest grant income of all WPI departments. Twenty-one new external research grants were received in academic year 1997-98, totaling $1,730,321, or 25 percent of WPI’s total new grants. Following is a summary of new grants and graduate fellowships for 1997-98:

Clements, K.A., "Optimal Power Flow in Competitive Electricity Markets," NSF International Program in collaboration with Prof. A. Simoes Costa at the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, $14,400, January 1998.

Cyganski, D., "Smart-Pump Vision System," Textron Systems Corp., $20,630, June, November 1997.

Cyganski, D., "Investigation of Pose-Invariant Algorithms," Textron Systems Corp., $20,000 (continuing), December 1997.

Cyganski, D., "Advanced Middleware Studies," Lockheed-Martin Corp., $99,969, March 1998.

Cyganski, D., "Network Fault Tolerance," Lockheed-Martin Corp., $79,999, March 1998.

Cyganski, D., "Advanced Machine Vision Toolset," Data Translation, Inc., $239,009, May 1998.

Lee, J.F., "Designs of High Performance Antennas Using Computer," Electronic Retailing Systems International, $40,000, March 1998.

Lee, J.F., "Development of a Fully 3-Dimensional Model of Interacting GPS and SAR Data," California Institute of Technology, $32,915, June 1998.

Ludwig, R., "A Feasibility Study of Applying Electromagnetic Nondestructive Testing Techniques to Evaluate Hardening Blade Steel," The Gillette Company, $53,483, November 1997.

Ludwig, R., "Development of a New Magnet System for the Generation of Highly Uniform Magnetic Fields," Commonwealth Scientific Corp., $2,728, June 1998.

McNeill, J.A., "High Speed Digital Output Camera-on-a-Chip," EG&G Reticon, $62,816, July 1997.

McNeill, J.A., "Research in Low Noise Integrated Circuit Design for Telecommunication Systems," NSF, $254,443, August 1997.

McNeill, J.A., "Analog Devices Graduate Fellowship," Analog Devices, $30,000, September 1997.

McNeill, J. A., "Analog ASIC-Based CD Camera," EG&G Reticon, $5,158, October 1997.

Paar, C., "Development and Implementation of a Key Management System," Technical Communications Corp., $21,366, January 1998.

Paar, C., "Cryptography on Reconfigurable Hardware: Algorithmic and Systems Aspects," NSF, $210,000, June 1998.

Paar, C., "Graduate Fellowship for Studies in the Area of Elliptic Curve Cryptography Systems," GTE Co., $25,000, 1997.

Paar, C., "Graduate Fellowship for Highly Talented Graduate Students," Secunet GmbH, $25,000, 1997.

Pahlavan, K., "Wireless LANs for UMTS," University of Oulu/Nokia/Finnish Telecom, $158,733, March 1998.

Pahlavan, K. and J. Matthews (co-PI), "Urban Geolocation System: Propagation Analysis & Measurements," TASC/DARPA, $226,508, October 1997; $123,188, May 1998 (Total $349,696).

Pedersen, P.C. (co-PI with James Hermanson, ME), "Fluid dynamics and Heat Transfer Characteristics of Condensing," Case Western Reserve Univ., $47,273, May 1998.

Pedersen, P.C. "Ultrasound-Based Osteoporosis Detection," NSF, $56,986, September 1997.

Pedersen, P.C. (co-PI), "Gaann Support in Biomedical Engineering at WPI," Dept. of Education, $126,110, June 1998.

Rulnick, J. M., "Workstation and Server Memory Reliability: Software Tool Development and System Analysis," Usenix Association, $3,990, October, 1997.

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