RIT Team Investigates Electronic "Noise"

Consumers want things to go faster, be it cars, microwave dinners, lines at the grocery store or Web connections.

But the cost of speed in electronics is often "noise." That noise causes interference in circuit boards, a problem especially prevalent in small, battery-powered devices such as cellular telephones, digital cameras and laptop computers.

With a grant from Eastman Kodak Co., P.R. Mukund, associate professor of electrical engineering in Rochester Institute of Technology’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering, is researching power distribution in microsystems at the circuit-board level in pursuit of faster electronic-systems components. He and electrical engineering graduate student Ghanshyam Nayak are studying design methodologies to eliminate circuit noise.

"We’re trying to find a solution to a very common problem in high-speed electronics," Mukund says. "We’re pleased to have Kodak support our research efforts." The grant from Kodak is worth $35,000.

Mukund recently teamed with industry representatives and researchers from Georgia Tech who are working on a similar project funded by Kodak.

Mukund says that within a year Kodak and other companies may be using technology gleaned from RIT’s findings in their products, providing consumers with high-speed, higher-performance electronic devices.