$1 Million Gift to RIT Will Help Launch New Electrical Engineering Lab and Courses
The analog and mixed-signal program concentration merges studies of analog integrated electronic circuit design and digital signal processing into a single environment, providing a foundation for professional engineering careers or graduate study. The new 4,000-square-foot Integrated Microsystems Laboratory is scheduled to open in December 2005, says Robert Bowman, lab director and RIT professor and department head of electrical engineering.
“The research mission of the lab is to explore, understand, develop and apply emerging technologies in integrated electronics, communications, microelectromechanical systems and biotechnology while investigating novel analog and digital integrated circuit design methods and system-on-chip architectures,” Bowman says. “Our partnership with an industry leader like ADI is essential in developing relevant educational and research programs.”
Examples of devices using analog and mixed-signal design technology include human heart pacemakers, automobile air-bag sensors and cellular telephone signal processors, to name only a few.
ADI, a semiconductor firm based in Norwood, Mass., specializes in high-performance analog, mixed-signal and digital signal-processing integrated circuits. One of the RIT engineering college's first and strongest industrial affiliates, the company currently employs 30 RIT alumni. The gift to RIT represents one of the largest ever to a university by the firm.
“ADI and RIT's longstanding relationship stems from our mutual understanding that industry-university relationships are multi-faceted,” says Sam Fuller, ADI's vice president of research and development. “RIT is not only educating the next generation of professionals through the analog and mixed-signal design program, it is advancing the scientific knowledge vital to our industry through the new research facility.”
Note: RIT's Kate Gleason College of Engineering is among the nation's top-ranked engineering colleges. The college offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in applied statistics, engineering science, and computer, electrical, industrial and systems, mechanical, and microelectronic engineering and a doctoral degree in microsystems engineering. RIT was the first university to offer undergraduate degrees in microelectronic and software engineering. Founded in 1829, RIT enrolls 15,500 students in more than 340 undergraduate and graduate programs. RIT has one of the nation's oldest and largest cooperative education programs.