News & Events

BSAC Seminar: Standards-Based Protocol Stacks for Low-Power Wireless Communication

November 2, 2010
Dr. Thomas Watteyne Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Postdoctoral Researcher November 2, 2010 | 12:30 to 01:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Kris Pister

The Internet of Things revolution is quietly coming, and with it an epochal turnpoint in wireless network design. Major standardization bodies have been looking at how wireless multi-hop networks should operate reliably (IEEE 802.15.4E, IETF RPL), how they can integrate within the Internet (IETF 6LoWPAN), and how utilities and end users...

BSAC Seminar: Silicon MEMS Oscillators - From Research to Products

November 16, 2010
Dr. Wan-Thai Hsu CTO, Discera November 16, 2010 | 12:30 to 01:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Clark Nguyen

This seminar first reviews the development history of MEMS resonators and oscillators. The evolution of MEMS resonator designs as well as transducer designs will be discussed, and the interface circuitry that is necessary to deal with special characteristics of MEMS resonators will be presented. Often taken for granted in research environments, MEMS fabrication processes and wafer level packaging...

BSAC Seminar: Heat Transfer and Fluid Dynamics in Micro-Scale Truss Structures

November 9, 2010
Dr. Chris Roper HRL Laboratories BSAC PhD 2007 November 9, 2010 | 12:30 to 01:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Roya Maboudian

Microfabricated heat sinks and heat exchangers are of increasing interest for numerous applications, including electronics cooling, due to the enhancement of convective heat transfer as well as an increase in surface area per unit volume with reduction in characteristic length scale. High cost per unit volume and limitations on device thickness severely constrain the applicability of heat transfer devices...

BSAC Seminar: Microengineered Hydrogels for Stem Cell Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration

November 23, 2010
Prof. Ali Khademhosseini College of Biomedical Engineering, Harvard Medical School November 23, 2010 | 12:30 to 01:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Luke Lee

Micro- and nanoscale technologies are emerging as powerful tools for controlling the interaction between cells and their surroundings for biological studies, tissue engineering, and cell-based screening. In addition, hydrogel biomaterials have been increasingly used in various tissue engineering applications since they provide cells with a hydrated 3D microenvironment that mimics...

BSAC Seminar: Ordered 1D Nanomaterials - Synthesis and Applications

December 7, 2010
Prof. Jennifer Lu School of Engineering, UC Merced December 7, 2010 | 12:30 to 01:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Liwei Lin

Establishing controllable synthesis and assembly of 1D nanomaterials is critical for scientific discovery and technology exploration. In this talk, I will present our research efforts in creating new functional materials and systems based on 1D nanomaterials for sensing, energy conversion, and life science. In particular, I will discuss the two following on-going research projects: A new multiblock...

BSAC Seminar: Connectivity Brokerage - Enabling Seamless Cooperation in Wireless Networks

November 30, 2010
Arash Parsa Graduate Student Researcher, Berkeley Wireless Research Center November 30, 2010 | 12:30 to 01:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: John Huggins

The explosive growth in the density of wirelessly-connected devices and their traffic load is increasing the interference level and gradually leading to severe spectrum shortage. Traditional approaches to address this challenge, such as spectrum regulation, improvement in spectral efficiency and reducing cell sizes, are running out of steam or are facing operational roadblocks....

BSAC Seminar: 3D Imaging in Standard CMOS

December 16, 2010
Prof. Alyosha Molnar School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University BSAC MS 2003 December 16, 2010 | 10:00 to 11:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Kris Pister

Techniques for building and using arrays of angle-sensitive pixels (ASPs) in standard CMOS will be discussed. ASPs are built from stacked metal diffraction gratings over photodiodes and provide significant information about the incident angle, as well as intensity of light detected. Arrays of ASPs provide a much richer description of the light field than...

BSAC Seminar: Design of Silicon Carbide JFET-Based Operational Amplifiers

December 14, 2010
Dr. Ayden Maralani December 14, 2010 | 12:30 to 01:30 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: John Huggins

Demand for capable and reliable semiconductor and fabrication technology for high temperature and power electronics applications has been rapidly increasing in recent years. Silicon Carbide (SiC), as a wide bandgap compound semiconductor, demonstrates superior characteristics such as high thermal conductivity, high breakdown voltage, and long-lasting reliable operation at elevated temperature. SiC-based circuits and systems are capable to...

BSAC Seminar: The Importance of New Companies for Pharmaceutical Innovation and University-Industry Cooperation in Japan, with Insights into Entrepreneurial Bottlenecks

January 18, 2011
Robert Kneller, J.D., M.D., M.P.H. Visiting Professor, Stanford Medical School January 18, 2011 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: John Huggins

Identifying the inventors of all the drugs approved by the FDA between 1998 and 2007 shows that discovery of innovative drugs relies disproportionately on new companies. Moreover, the initial development of scientifically novel university drugs depends almost exclusively on new companies (biotechs). Biotechs discover a substantial proportion of new drugs in the US, Canada and...

BSAC Seminar: Micromirrors for Integrated Tunable Mid-Infrared Detectors and Emitters

February 8, 2011
Dr. Niels Quack Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley BSAC Postdoctoral Researcher February 8, 2011 | 12:00 to 01:00 | 540 Cory Hall, DOP Center Conference Room Host: Ming Wu

State-of-the-art infrared micro-spectrometers can be fabricated using MEMS technologies. An overview of selected MEMS infrared micro-spectrometers will be presented, including discussion of integrated narrow-band tunable mid-infrared detectors and emitters developed at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. In these systems, IV-VI semiconductor thin film...