Tewksbury

S. Tewksbury: Director: 1990-1996; Assoc Dir: 1996-
L.A. Hornak: Assoc Director: 1996-1996; Director: 1996-

The Microelectronics Systems Research Center (MSRC) was established within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at West Virginia University in 1990. Leveraging extensive corporate experience, sustained levels of external research funding, and globally recognized research and professional activites, the Microelectronic Systems Research Center nurtures the ongoing development and enrichment of undergraduate and graduate studies in microelectronic and photonic systems at West Virginia University. The MSRC facilities were open to all WVU faculty and to graduate/undergraduate students with applications requiring the MSRC facilities.

The activities of the Center focus on five interrelated objectives:

Expansion and enrichment of the undergraduate and gradute programs through educational initiatives in microelectronic and photonic systems, and communication/signal processing systems,
Ongoing development and evolution of significant funded research programs,
Creation of a competitive laboratory infrastructure for research and education,
Pursuit of a strong presence in national and international professional activities maintaining and further building recognition of the Center,
Development of an effective industry outreach program coordinated among both large corporations and small companies benefiting local, national, and international interests.

The Initial MSRC Infrastructure When founded in 1990 and 1991, the MSRC consisted of three major laboratories supporting microelectronic systems research and education.
Microelectronic System Design and Prototyping Laboratory This laboratory provided resources forVLSI system design, simulation, and prototyping design, verification, prototyping, and testing of microelectronic systems. CAD tools for design & simulation of microelectronic ICs, for simulation of microfabrication processing, and instrument control were available. A full range of electronic instrumentation for testing devices, circuits & systems was available as was a PC-board prototyping system for building multiple-IC systems. This laboratory was renamed the Laboratory for Advanced Information and Computational Systems later, reflecting its primary research activities while continuing its earlier support for studies related to advanced physical technologies. The initial facility was based on significant donations from AT&T Bell Laboratories to Prof. Tewksbury upon his retiring to join WVU, with substantial additional capabilities provided by donations from several companies and funded grants.	Microsystems Fabrication and Testing Laboratory This 1000 square foot laboratory provided the resources for fabrication of MOS devices, MEMS devices, polymer and other optical waveguides and other micro-structures. The intial facility was based on significant donations from AT&T Bell Laboratories to Prof. Tewksbury upon his retiring to join WVU, with subsequent additional capabilities provided companies, funded equipment grants, and other sources	Photonics and Optoelectronics Laboratory This 700 square foot laboratory provided capabilities to explore the use of optical components for innovative applications including optical interconnects for electronics. The inital facility was based on significant donations from AT&T Bell Laboratories to Prof. Hornak upon his leaving to join WVU. Subsequent additional capabilities were established through other donations and funded grants.

Facilities Supporting Education Programs The above baseline of facilities allowed a number of other laboratory facilities to be developed. Facilities supporting the education mission of WVU and the ECE Department included those below.
NSF Undergrad Design & Prototyping Laboratory The ECE Undergraduate Design & Prototyping laboratory was developed by Prof. Tewksbury through an NSF/ILI grant (Prof. Hornak, Co-PI). The laboratory provided 12 student workstations, each equipped with oscilloscopes, function generators, multimeters, power supplies, etc. Supplementing the instrumentaiton were 12 networked PC workstations and a central lab server enabling access to both PC and UNIX based CAD tools. Equipment donations from Tektronic Corp and Hewlett-Packard provided spectrum analyzers and logic analyzers.	NSF Photonics & Lightwave Communications Laboratory The ECE Photonics & Lightwave Communications Laboratory was developed by Prof. Hornak (Prof. Tewksbury, Co-PI) through and NSF/ILI grant, supplemented by donations. The laboratory provided the resources (optical bench, optical fiber, opto-electronic components, fiber-coupling apparatus, instrumentation for generation and measurement of the lightwave sytems, and other resources.	WVU Laboratory for Computer-Based Instructional Technologies (LCIT) The LCIT facility was established by Prof. Tewksbury through funding from WV State, donations from companies, and other sources to provide the resources needed to develop significant Web content for courses at WVU and at West Virginia Institute of Technology (WVIT). In addition to assisting faculty in Web content development, an objective was to establish Web-based courses that could be shared between the two institutions.

Interdisciplinary Research Programs and Facilities Developed Through the MSRC The facilities and programs of the MSRC provided a mechanism for developing important collaborative research programs. Two programs developed in collaboration with WVU Hospitals and the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center (HSC). In addition, the MSRC provided the foundations for other laboratories to be developed in the general area of biomedical engineering. Examples are the following.
Medical Imaging & Image Processing Research Cluster The Medical Imaging & Image Processing Research Cluster was established with the support of an NSF grant and was a collaboration between researchers in the WVU engineering & science units and researchers within the Health Science Center. The focus was on image processing innovations for medical applications, highlighting imaging technologies such as CT, MRI, PET, and others.	Collaborative Medical Informatics Laboratory (CMIL) The Collaborative Medical Informatics Laboratory was developed as the result of a major equipment grant from Hewlett-Packard in support of medical informatics and of home health care. Prof. Tewksbury was the technical manager and overall management was provided by representatives from the various university units. The facilities included a substantial HP Enterprise server, a 1 TByte data storage system, and home health care laboratories distributed among various participating groups.	Other The MSRC served as a resource fom new faculty members developing new research areas. Building on this support, several were able to compete for external funding and build separate laboratories providing capabilities needed. One example was a biomedical engineering program that successfully developed into a significant program with its own laboratory facility. Another theme pursued was biometrics.

Professional Activites Developed A number of professional service activities were undertaken by the MSRC faculty. Representative examples included.
Prof. Tewksbury established the electronic newsletter of the IEEE CPMT Society (used prior to development of the CMPT Web site). Prof. Hornak developed the initial IEEE LEOS web site (used prior to the LEOS web site on the IEEE server) and an electronic newsletter similar to that used for CPMT.	Working with the participants of the earlier IEEE Conf. on Wafer-Scale Integration, the IEEE Conf. on Integrated Systems in Silicon was established An IEEE Press book series on microelectronic systems principles and practice was established.	The Plenum Journal of Microelectronic System Integration was established. Collaborations with professional groups (e.g., biometrics professional organization and others) were established and used to assist in the develoment of workshops and conferences.

Representative Research Funding Representative research funding obtained by the main MSRC developers (S. Tewksbury and L. Hornak) included the following examples of early funding used to develop the MSRC facilities and programs. The resulting MSRC infrastructure then provided the vehicle for additional funding as the MSRC and its programs evolved.
NSF Experimental Systemic Initiative: Embedded Systems for Image Processing and Intelligent Sensors. $230,000 from NSF ($230,000 additional in matching). S.K. Tewksbury (PI) and L.A. Hornak (co-PI). (1995-1998). ARPA/E-Systems: HTS Technology Insertion Program: Cryoelectronics in MCM Based Systems, S. K. Tewksbury PI, L. A. Hornak co-PI, $199,982 (1993-1994) ARPA/E-Systems:Cryoelectronics in MCM Based Systems}, S. K. Tewksbury principle investigator, L. A. Hornak co-principle investigator, $94,200 eight months, (1992-1993).	ARPA University Research Initiation Program: Compatibility of Submicron Silicon CMOS with Heteroepitaxial growth of GaAs. $510,000, (1991-1994). S. Tewksbury (PI). ARPA supplement for URI program above: Compatibility of Submicron Silicon CMOS with Heteroepitaxial growth of GaAs. $86,420 (1992-1995). S. Tewksbury (PI). NSF: Integrated Interconnections for ULSI Using Si Wafer Area Neworks, S. K. Tewksbury PI, L. A. Hornak co-PI, $138,881. (1992-1994).	NSF National Young Investigator: Advanced System-Level Technologies: Cointegrated polymer waveguide optical interconnections for wafer-level MCM systems. L.A. Hornak, PI (1992-1997). AFOSR: Equipment Resources for MCM Technology and System Prototyping, L. A. Hornak PI, S. K. Tewksbury co-PI, , $313,604 (1993-1994).

Representative Undergraduates and Their Research Topics The MSRC supported undergraduates interested in pursuing significant research projects for the capstone senior design projects. Examples of students completing research in the MSRC facilities area as follows.
Leo Chan: High school student performing summer research on constant-delay ATM cell layout. Taken a position at Bell Atlantic. Nicole McVanney: Dual Major, EE-CpE. Working at the West VIrginia High-Tech Consortium. Aaron Swecker: Dual Major, EE-CpE. Senior research project and EG& G Scholarship sponsored research on direct-write UV lithography system presented at NCUR '94 & 95. Attended graduate school at CMU. Gretchen Williams: Dual Major, EE-CpE. Senior research project and EG&G Scholarship sponsored research on direct-write UV lithography system presented at NCUR '94 & 95. Attended graduate school at CMU.	Westley Cox: Dual Major, EE-CpE. Completed MEMS senior research project presented at NCUR '95. Conducted summer research on low-temperature laser diode characterization. Attended graduate school at CMU. John Wolfgang: Dual Major, EE-CpE. Completed MEMS senior research project presented at NCUR '95. Attended graduate school at CMU. Lauren Tewksbury: High school student. Summer research on constant-delay ATM cell layout, also a specialized lithography CAD tool. Attended Brown University.	Eric Warren: Dual Major, EE-CpE. Senior research project on inter-MCM optical interconnections. Employed at American Heuristics, Inc. Fairmont, WV. Doug Yeager: Dual Major, EE-CpE. Senior research project on inter-MCM optical interconnections. Accepted position in the DC area.

Courses Developed and Offered (S. Tewksbury & L. Hornak) The principals of the MSRC developed and delivered a number of courses in the general area of the MSRC activities, including the following.
Core Undergrad Courses Microprocessors Electronic Materials and Devices Electric and Magnetic Fields I Electric and Magnetic Fields II Analog Circuits Analog Circuits Lab	Technical Electives VLSI Circuit Design Principles of Microfabrication Fundamentals of Photonics Information Systems Semiconductor Devices Sensors and Displays The above include joint upper level undergraduate/lower-level graduate courses	Graduate Courses Optoelectronic Devices Microelectronic SystemsI Microelectronic Systems II Microelectronic and Photonic Systems Seminar