2005 Events:
Note: The presentations are available for browsing and downloading at each linked subject title.November 2, 2005: "Blackfin, a combined risc/signal processing architecture for a new era" by Tim Wilkerson, Analog Devices
Abstract: The presentation describes the salient architectural features of the Blackfin Processor from Analog Devices as well as some of the larger applications areas. Multiple single core and dual core proliferations of the blackfin family are described as well as peripheral mix, and benchmark information showing strengths of the architecture as well as unique capabilities in such application areas as multimedia, networking, automotive and instrumentation. In addition, some C level compiler strategies are briefly described which are applicable to Blackfin.Biography:
September 7, 2005: "Introduction to the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility and Research Examples" by Dr. Paul Rissman, Stanford Nanotech Center
Abstract: The Stanford Nanofabrication Facility is part of the NSF's National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network. It is a research and development facility with a wide variety of semiconductor processing equipment that is open to external use. In a typical month, there are 200 users of the facility comprised of 120 Stanford graduate students, 20 students and faculty from other universities, and 60 industrial users, primarily from start-up companies. Projects in the lab come from the study of MEMS/NEMS, bio-MEMS/NEMS, sensors/actuators, nanotubes/nanowires, semiconductor materials and device research, magnetic technology, photonic devices and many other fields.Biography: Paul Rissman is the Director of Research Operations of the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. His undergraduate and graduate education was in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Paul worked 26 years in the semiconductor industry, including 2 years at Amdahl Corporation, 20 years at Hewlett Packard, and 4 years at LSI Logic, serving in various management positions for the last 19 years. He has 26 publications, 4 patents granted, 2 patents filed, and 2 patents disclosed in the fields of semiconductor processing, electron beam lithography, superconducting junction technology and other fields.
August 3, 2005: "Contamination Analysis using Surface Analytical Tools" by Gary Mount, Cascade Scientific Labs Inc.
Abstract: Surface Analytical Tools will be described and their capabilities outlined. The focus will be on Contamination Analysis, showing what is possible and providing practical examples. The discipline of Surface Science possesses many analytical tools that allow us to examine the surface of solids for contamination. We can identify elements, chemical bonding, concentration, and depth distribution. We can examine atomic layer contamination, thicker layers, and particles. This presentation will give an overview of what is possible, providing practical examples.Biography:
July 6, 2005: "Beyond Standard Finite Elements, Techniques to make FEA Programs Do What You Never Thought They Could." by Dr. John Dunec, COMSOL, Inc
Abstract: Most engineers are very familiar with FEA codes and the results you can expect from them. There are a number of tools on the market, all specializing in some aspect of engineering analysis. Of late multiphysics analysis is becoming more and more important and companies are rising to this challenge. The problem is that the scope of analysis envisioned by the FEA developers is frequently inadequate for today's complex, many-faceted engineering challenges. Some codes allow the user access to programming tools, some as simple as user-defined functions. The more sophisticated tools allow access the underlying mathematics solved by the program. Using these, your finite element package can be adapted to solve problems you never thought you could. Using COMSOL's FEMLAB, a commercial FEA code that allows such access, the speaker will show a variety of techniques, ranging from the simple to the not-so-simple to show how to accomplish this yourself. These will include linking FEA to lumped mass systems, building in feedback and control, linking 2D to 3D, properly adding viscous loss terms to flatten shallow 3D microfluidics channels into 2D flow, adding Newton's laws of motion to an electromagnetic analysis to simulate a magnetic disk brake, creating mappings that allow a code without moving meshes to simulate a spinning generator, indeed, how to add a moving mesh to such a code and simulate electro-static actuation in MEMs. We will see how to link regimes together to simulate jump conditions (such as the thermal and voltage drop across thin mylar tape) and we will see an easy approach to adding terms to incompressible flow equations to simulate thermally expanding (and thus accelerating) flow. This will not be a detailed mathematical talk, rather it will be an overview thats strives to stretch your view of what can be done with your FEA tool (provided it gives you access to some user-defined features) well beyond what you think are its bounds and limits.Biography: John Dunec has over 25 years of experience in technology development and analysis. After receiving his Ph.D. from Stanford, Dr Dunec spent 11 years as a product engineer and manager at IBM. He was on the original team that designed what is now Pro/Mechanica, taught numerical methods at UC Santa Cruz, and spent 3 years at Prof. Hughes' multiphysics FEA startup, Centric Engineering. Dr. Dunec formed and, for the past 12 years, ran Venture Product, a product development and analysis consulting firm with clients ranging from IDEO, to Xerox PARC, to numerous start-ups in MEMs, microfluidics, biotechnology and advanced optical technology. John has considerable experience with finite element codes and for the past 3 years has taught FEMLAB classes throughout the country. Last April, Dr. Dunec opened COMSOL's Palo Alto office as the Bay Area's FEMLAB sales, support and education center.
June 15, 2005: "Overview of Changes and Tackling Challenges of High Speed Digital Interfaces" by Rohit Bhasin, Agilent Technologies
Abstract: This presentation highlights technical advancements in high speed computer and storage interconnects as well the breakthroughs in semiconductor test equipment that is necessary to characterize and validate them.Biography: Rohit Bhasin is a Senior Technical Sales Engineer for Agilent Technologies. He is responsible for sales of all High Speed Computer I/O and Memory Analysis solutions in Silicon Valley. He has held several hardware engineering positions at Intel and previously Acterna Corporation. Mr. Bhasin has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering with emphasis in Computer Architecture and Design from The Pennsylvania State University.
May 18, 2005: "Samplify: Lossless and Lossy Data Compression for Instrumentation Signals at 10+ Msamp/sec" by Albert Wegener, Samplify Systems LLC
Abstract: While effective compression solutions have been developed for computer files (Lempel-Ziv), audio (MP3), and video (MPEG), many types of instrumentation signals, especially those sampled at 10 Msamp/sec or higher, have never been effectively compressed. We will describe the SignalZIP (lossless) and Samplify (lossy) compression algorithms, which were developed specifically to compress high-speed, bandlimited sampled data using software, DSPs, and FPGAs. The presentation will also demonstrate how common instrumentation measurements, such as rise time, jitter, spectral analysis, etc., can be improved through the use of Samplify compression.Biography: Al Wegener is a DSP engineer with more than 20 years' experience in defense electronics, professional and consumer audio, and wireless applications. Mr. Wegener founded Samplify Systems LLC in 1999 to bring the benefits of high-speed lossless and lossy compression to those users processing signals at sampling rates above 10 Msamp/sec, where no effective compression solutions had been offered. Mr. Wegener received a BSEE from Bucknell University and an MSCS from Stanford University.