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Tewks Web Site |
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At West Virginia University, several research laboratories and education laboratories were developed under the auspices of an informal center called the "Microelectronic Systems Research Center" (MSRC) established upon joining WVU. The initial research facilities were established through substantial equipment donations from AT&T Bell Laboratories. With this foundation, additional facilities were established through funded proposals. This informal center provided an integrating mechanism for the various facilities established and for interdisciplinary research initatives developed. All research laboratories were available for qualified undergraduates as well as for graduate students and faculty throughout the University. Prof. Larry Hornak (a colleague at Bell Labs who joined WVU in 1991) was a co-developer of these various facilities and programs and manager of several. The primary facilities and laboratories developed were as follows.
| Microelectronic Systems Research Center (MSRC) | ||
| The Microelectronic Systems Research Center, founded in 1990, provided research facilities including a microfabrication laboratory, a cryo-electronics research laboratory, and a VLSI design laboratory, all enabled through equipment donations from AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1991, Prof. Hornak established the optoelectronics laboratory within MSRC drawing upon additional equipment donations from AT&T Bell Laboratories. S. Tewksbury: Founder and Director 1990-1996. Assoc Director 1996-98. L. Hornak: Cofounder and Assoc. Director 1990-1996. Director 1996-98. |
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| MSRC Microfabrication Laboratory | ||
| The MSRC Microfabrication Laboratory provided the full range of fabrication equipment, test equipment, and other resources needed to fabricate MOS devices and MEMS components. The initial laboratory was similar to the small microfabrication laboratory developed at Bell Laboratories by Prof. Tewksbury to experiment with novel types of devices (e.g., MOSFETs doped with deep-level dopants to achieve carrier freezeout above 77K, early MEMS devices, and other microelectronic components). The laboratory obtained additional equipment through donations from IBM (Manassas, VA) and other companies. Significant equipment was obtained via a DURIP proposal developed by Prof. Hornak, providing reactive ion etching equipment, aluminum metalization equipment, and other equipment. Both regular mask alignment equipment and "through-wafer" mask alignment using IR light (and useful for MEMS device research) were available.
The MSRC Microfabrication Research Laboratory was open to both graduate students and undergraduate students, with interesting senior design projects completed in the area of MEMS-based optical switches and other projects. S. Tewksbury: Founder and Director 1990-1996. Assoc Director 1996-98.L. Hornak: Cofounder and Assoc. Director 1990-1996. Director 1996-. |
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| MSRC Optoelectronics Research Laboratory | ||
| The MSRC Optoelectronics Laboratory was established by Prof. Hornak upon his joining WVU in 1991 from AT&T Bell Laboratories. The laboratory included a wide range of optical components, instrumentation, optical bench, etc. The Cryogenic Systems laboratory established by Prof. Tewksbury co-occupied the same room as the Optoelectronics Laboratory, allowing assessments of optoelectronic devices at lower temperatures. Efforts to arrange donation of a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) were sucessful, providing this inportant inspection capability.
L. Hornak: Founder and Director 1991-. |
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| MRSC Microelectronic System Design & Prototyping Lab (later redeveloped as) Laboratory for Advanced Information & Computation Systems (LAICS) |
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| The Laboratory for Advance Information & Computation Systems (LAICS) was established in 1990 as part of the MSRC laboratory infrastructure. LAICS highlighted design and prototyping of microelectronic systems as well as experimentation on advanced microelectronic components. System design included both custom and FPGA-based VLSI design as well as printed circuit board design. Experimentation on advanced microelectronic components included characterizations of submicron CMOS devices on a silicon wafer that combined CMOS silicon devices with heteroepitaxial growth of GaAs crystal islands, seeking to clarify the potential integration of silicon CMOS and optoelctronics. Other experimentation included studies of high temperature superconducting strip lines and MEMS components.
As LAICS progressed from device testing to system design, significant software tools were acquired, e.g., VLSI design software (including custom and VHDL), semiconductor device fabrication simulation software (providing accurate modeling of device structures resulting from process sequences along with modeling of the devices for electrical behavior). Later system design work highlighted FPGA based architectures using DSP ICs (e.g., the Analog Devices SHARC DSP). These studies emphasized image processing applications and resulted in the development of collaborative programs with the West Virginia University Hospital system (the Robert C. Byrd Health Science Center). S. Tewksbury: Founder and Director 1990-1998. |
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| Medical Imaging & Image Processing Research Cluster (NSF funded) | ||
| The Medical Imaging & Image Processing Research Cluster was established as a collaboration between faculty in the engineering and science program of WVU and faculty of the WVU Hospital System (Health Sciences Center). The emphasis was on advanced medical imaging (CT, MRI, PET, etc.) technologies being studied at the Health Science Center (HSC) and application of advanced image processing techniques being studied within WVU. The success of this initiative led to the development of a collaborative effort between WVU (mainly the ECE and CS departments) and the HSC to advance the general topic of medical information systems.
S. Tewksbury: Founder and PI
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| Collaborative Medical Informatics Laboratory - CMIL (HP funded) | ||
| The Collaborative Medical Informatics Laboratory (CMIL) was established as a result of a successful proposal the the Hewlett-Packard medical products group in Merrimac Valley, MA. This "laboratory" was actually a set of laboratories. One facility contained a substantial mid-range HP server with considerable data storage capabilities (Tbyte) and both Ethernet and ATM communications connections. This facility was established to provide a common location outside of the firewall of the Health Science Center through which participants from both WVU and the HSC could collaborate. The HP award also established a number of home health care laboratories distributed to various academic and research units of WVU. This focus reflected the very rural nature of West Virginia and the need for special capabilities to allow a recovering patient to return home.
Given the already existing collaborations established in the Medical Imaging and Image Processing Research Cluster, the resources of both initiatives were integrated via sharing of equipment and resources. S. Tewksbury: Founder and PI
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| WVU Laboratory for Computer-Based Instructional Technologies (LCIT) | ||
| The WVU Laboratory for Computer-Based Instributional Technologies was supported State and University grants, establishing resources coupled between WVU (in the northwestern part of WV) and West Virginia Institute of Technology (in the southern part of WV). The objective was to support collaborative development of courses, enhanced by Web-based technologies and delivery, that could be shared between the two institutions. The LCIT facility provided a Unix Web server, multimedia PCs for content development, print and film scanners, CD replication, and a collection of software products (commercial and public domain) that could be used to develop course Web content.
Web content for 18 undergraduate courses (delivered by different departments in the two institutions but most from the ECE Department at WVU) was established during its first couple of years of operation. S. Tewksbury: PI and manager |
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| NSF/ILI Undergraduate Design & Prototyping Laboratory | ||
| The Undergraduate Design & Prototyping Laboratory was established using NSF funding from its ILI program combined with particularly deep discounts provided by Tektronix for equipment acquired for the laboratory. The laboratory included about 12 student stations, each with oscilloscope, multimeter, function generator, and power supplies. The laboratory also included spectrum analyzers and logic analyzers from Tektronix and Hewlett-Packard, obtained as donations.
S. Tewksbury: PI |
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| NSF/ILI Undergrad Photonics & Lightwave Communications Laboratory | ||
| The Undergraduate Photonics & Lightwave Communications Laboratory was established shortly after the NSF/ILI funded lab above. It was also funded through an NSF/ILI grant. The laboratory provided the set of instrumentation, optical sources and detectors, optical fiber, optical fiber couplers, and related items allowing students to experiment with construction and testing of an optical link, using the typical long roll of optical fiber (several km).
L. Hornak: PI |
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