ECE News for Summer 2006
 ECE Prof Working on Stationary Fuel Cells that use Natural Gas Professor John B. Goodenough and postdoctoral fellows in his laboratory have identified a material that would allow hospitals or other independent facilities to generate electricity from stationary fuel cells that run on natural gas. Unlike fuel cells developed for hydrogen-fueled autos, double-perovskite ceramic converts natural gas directly into electricity, saving a processing step. It conducts both electrons and oxide ions, and promotes the chemical reactions of the fuel cell. The new material is also tolerant to sulfur impurities in natural gas. Texas Instruments Funds Semiconductor Research Texas Instruments will give more than $500,000 to ECE faculty for research.
"UT-Austin has built a reputation for producing some of the world’s most talented engineers, as well as embarking on leading edge research in semiconductor process technology," said Duy-Loan Le, TI Senior Fellow and ECE alumna. "All of us at TI share with UT-Austin the belief that Texas has the potential to be known around the world as a center for innovation and technology development. Working together, we have a greater chance of bringing that vision to life."  Yale Patt given 2006 IBM Faculty Award—Again
Professor Yale Patt received a $30K IBM Faculty Award for his microarchitecture research, specifically: Microarchitecture within a Systems Context. Dr. Patt is addressing the limitations of current research. Studies in runahead execution, branch prediction, and other microarchitecture areas traditionally suffer from operating in a limited horizon, to wit: the microarchitecture operates on SPEC benchmarks on a uniprocessor, with no operating system effects, or compiler or algorithm assists. The idea is that by broadening the horizon, two valuable things become possible:(1) the results become more useful because they do not reflect microarchitecture in a vacuum, and more importantly, new opportunities are enabled by bringing to bear other elements of the system level context.
Three ECE undergrads and one graduate student left on June 3rd on a 4,500 miles bike ride from Austin, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska. Nathan Archer, Tony Petz, Mione Sadeghzadeh, and Jay Yu have helped to raise over $270,000 so far. The Texas 4000 riders hope to use their personal experiences to bring hope to cancer patients they meet along the way; educate others about cancer; and urge others to join in the fight against cancer by donating. EE 464 Senior Lab Winners
Professor Lizy John, director of the Laboratory for Computer Architecture (LCA) just received the highly competitive IBM Faculty Award again. She has received the IBM Center for Advanced Studies Partnership/IBM Faculty Award year every year since 2000. The award will help to develop miniature benchmarks to capture the essence of emerging computer workloads for performance and power validation and estimation. The workload "clones" that Prof. John's group is developing will help to reduce performance evaluation time by 1,000 to 10,000 times. IBM has also supported this line of research by awarding Dr. John's RA, Ajay Joshi, with an IBM Fellowship. Undergraduate Researchers Show Projects Undergraduates from all over Texas displayed their research projects last Friday. The Extensible Undergraduate Research in Communications Applications (EURECA)—funded by the National Science Foundation—promotes undergraduate research in the areas of communications, networks, and systems. Students admitted to the program spent 10 weeks at UT-Austin working on their projects. They received a stipend to cover their travel, housing and boarding expenses while at the University. The resulting projects ranged from next generation LANs to routing protocols, software defined radio and preventing network attacks. Applications to next summer's program will open on Jan. 15, 2007. Please contact Professors Sriram Vishwanath or Bill Bard for more information. More...
Academic, government and industry leaders are collaborating to raise $30 million for a regional nanotechnology research institute to be based at the University of Texas at Austin. UT System regents are expected to endorse the project and commit $10 million from the system's endowment on Friday. System documents show that the plan calls for the state's Emerging Technology Fund to be tapped for $10 million and for semiconductor companies to provide the remaining $10 million. More...
Professor David Pan, director of UT VLSI Design Automation Laboratory (UTDA) just received the highly competitive IBM Faculty Award the third year in a row. The award will help develop novel electronic design automation algorithms and tools to bridge the critical gaps between IC design and manufacturing, one of the biggest challenges faced by the semiconductor industry as the result of CMOS scaling. Computer Architecture Guru Speaks IEEE/ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award winner, Professor Yale Patt's keynote address to the IEEE Computer Society 60th Anniversary Reception is now available online. The future of "Computer * " (Are we in serious trouble?) Windows Multimedia file of entire talk (wmv)(278MB)
Professor Derek Chiou just received a $40,000 IBM faculty award. Dr. Chiou will use the highly competitive award to help develop a full-system, cycle-accurate computer simulator that can predict the performance and behavior of realistic computer systems. The simulator promises to be thousands of times faster than the best current simulators while simultaneously producing more accurate and detailed information. Better computer simulation can result in better computer systems and software running on those systems. More... Summer Construction Projects Underway The Electrical & Computer Engineering Department is taking advantage of the relative quiet of the summer to remodel. Can you guess what projects we have undertaken?
EETimes reports that a research team using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been able to pinpoint the area of the brain likely to create an engineer. Unlike verbal ability and focus orientation which are widely dispersed throughout the brain, spatial ability—or the ability to mentally rotate objects in space—is localized within the brain, making it easier to measure. More... ECE Prof and Grad Students Win Best Paper Award
The International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED), is a premier Design & Design Automation conference, aimed at bridging the gap between and integration of: electronic design tools and processes, integrated circuit technologies, processes and manufacturing in order to achieve design quality. ISQED is the pioneer and leading conference dealing with design for manufacturability and quality issues.
Shawn Davis is yet another ECE graduate hired by Microsoft. He started working there right after graduation. He credits Professor Howard Neal's circuits class as "... the starting point for my interest in what would become my primary technical area." Prof Neal also inspired Shawn with his views on leadership and corporate politics. "But most of all, talking to him outside of class about my future plans." Shawn sees a movement toward optical technologies. Shawn's standout college experience was his "summer internship in Japan - the cultural differences both in and out of business life, the international friendships, and the food." The other big upcoming event in his life is his July wedding. Congratulations, Shawn, and good luck!
Recent Ph.D. graduate and WNCG member, Dr. Antonio Forenza, won the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE 63rd Vehicular Technology Conference in Melbourne on May 2006. with a paper entitled, "Switching Between OSTBC and Spatial Multiplexing with Linear Receivers in Spatially Correlated MIMO Channels". Forenza co-authored this paper with Matthew R. McKay (from the University of Sydney, Australia), Iain B. Collings (from CSIRO, Australia ) and Professor Robert W. Heath, Jr. his advisor at The University of Texas at Austin. More...
Congratulations to Diana Vega for receiving the Spring 2006 semester ECE Staff Merit Award!! In addition to a letter from the Chairman and a framed certificate, Ms. Vega received a check for $500.00! A 16-year veteran, Ms. Vega concentrates on logistrics for the department. Comments given on her nomination are "dedication and commitment towards her work," "dedicates herself to doing a good job," "following through on job tasks," and "has an excellent attitude. |
Professor David Pan Wins IBM Faculty Award Again 
