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One to One: From the Department Head

2 Patton RecievesIEEE Honor

4 Banerjee SpeaksOn ComputerEngineering

5 EE AlumnusReflects on Life

6 Scholarship andFellowshipRecipients

8 Annual Fund

9 Patt DiscussesComputerEngineering

Highlights

Integrated Optics Research Producing Devices For Future

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY SPRING/SUMMER2000

Currently the graduate program in ourdepartment has an enrollment of 400, with halfof these students pursuing Ph. D. degrees. TheUS News & World Report ranked our electricalengineering graduate program 16th in the nationthis year.

This year 1450 students have applied to seekadmission into our graduate program. Theseapplicants come with excellent credentials with alarge fraction from the top institutions aroundthe world. This pool of high quality applicantsmakes the admission process very competitive.Just as top students contribute to the strengthand quality of our graduate program, there is a

direct relationship between our graduateprogram and the volume and quality of researchin the department. The graduate students

benefit from the research activities in thedepartment, and quality research needs creativestudents.

The undergraduate students, however, aremore focused on course work and designprojects. They can go through the departmentwithout much awareness of or involvement in

Manipulating guided lightbeams may seem like a futuristic

expression found in Star Trekmovies, but for a group ofelectrical engineering students thephrase is very familiar.

These students are involved inthe electro-optic device research atTexas A&M, concentrating onIntegrated Optics.

Dr. Ohannes Eknoyan, professor,said Integrated Optics is concernedwith the development of thin-filmcomponents for performingfunctions such as modulation,switching and multiplexing of guidedlight beams.

The facilities at the Institute forSolid State Electronics fabricate the devices, andoptical testing is done in the departments electro-optics laboratories.

Much of Eknoyans research at the Institute is orientedtoward applications in optical fiber communications, a fieldthat is evolving rapidly to keep pace with seeminglyinsatiable demands for bandwidth.

Were pursuing basically two avenues in our efforts,Eknoyan said. One is making integrated optics devices byexploiting new concepts. The other is exploring new typesof electro-optic materials.

The new materials offer an advantage for makingdevices smaller in size than similar devices constructed

Research into Integrated Opticsbenefits students, who have theopportunity to meet with the sponsors.

See OPTICS - page 2

with more conventionalmaterials. They also allow morefficient electrical powerconsumption.

We have to apply anelectrical signal on the surface ofthose optical devices to controltheir operation, Eknoyan said.By using these new materials,the requirement for electricalpower is reduced significantly.

A technique that wasdeveloped at Texas A&M createlow-loss optical waveguidesusing the static strain-optic effecThis method made it possible forthe first time to construct guidedwave devices in tungsten bronze

ferroelectric materials SBN andBSTN. These super-EO materials featureexceptionally large electro-optic coefficients,which comprehend optical modulators andswitches with very low electrical powerconsumption. Work is now continuing toproduce linear and very high frequencymodulators with these materials.

The recent emergence of wavelength-division-multiplexing in fiber optic systemsalso has created a need for tunable filtersfor combining and separating the wave-length channels.

Chanan Singh

the research activities. During the pastyear we started two programs to providemore research opportunities to theundergraduate students.

First, we hosted our first GraduateStudies Day, inviting undergraduates toattend poster and display presentations

by graduate students who discussedtheir research. Second, we initiated adepartmental undergraduate researchscholarships program funded bycontributions from corporations and thedepartments annual fund campaign. Theresearch scholarship recipients work

with faculty members on researchprojects and can get credit for threehours.

We hope that this program, inaddition to creating awareness ofresearch opportunities, will stimulateour undergraduates creative potentialand encourage them to pursue graduateschool and a research career.

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2

OPTICS-continued from page 1

Motorola Provides HalfMillion Dollar Gift to EE

In the department, an electro-optic tunable add-drop filter has

been produced using a phase-matched strain-induced grating forpolarization coupling in diffusedwaveguides in a lithium tantalatesubstrate.

The electro-optic tunable filter

allows one tocontrol the flow ofinformationcontaining signalsthat are attached todifferent wave-length carriers onthe line, and tomake certain thatthe signals on a specific wave-length are routed one way andthose on other wavelengths goanother way, Eknoyan said.

These applications are aimedprimarily towards fiber-opticnetworksfor both digital andanalog type transmission systems.Efforts are now centered onextending this work onto lithiumniobate substrates to producecomponents that will meet theinternational standards for spacing

between channels with unprec-edented tuning speeds.

The demand is on high speedand wide bandwidth, he said.Those are two areas wereaddressing.

The processes used in makingthe devices are based onconventional semi-conductor

Dr. Alton D. Patton, a professor in theDepartment of Electrical Engineering,recently received the 2000 Institute ofElectrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)Richard Harold Kaufmann Award.

The IEEE is the worlds largest technicalprofessional society with about 320,000members worldwide. The IEEE Board ofDirectors in 1986 established the IEEERichard Harold Kaufmann Award, which wasnamed after Kaufmann for his contributionsto industrial systems engineering. It is foroutstanding achievement in the field ofindustrial systems engineering.

One award is presented annually to those who have madeexceptional contributions to electrical engineering in the industrialenvironment through the design or application of systems technol-ogy, as well as apparatus, devices or materials for plant powerdistribution, drive systems, process control or other utilizationsystems. It is presented by the Board of Directors on recommenda-tion of the Technical Field Awards Council and the Awards Board.

Patton was cited For contributions to power system reliabilityanalysis and its application to industrial power facilities.

His interest areas include electric power systems, system and

equipment reliability/failure analysis and neural network applications.A former Texas A&M University electrical engineeringdepartment head, Patton currently serves on the editorial advisory

boards for the Electric Machines and Power Systems and theInternational Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems. Healso is a member of the National Research Council Panel forAssessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technol-ogy Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory. Patton is aLife Fellow of IEEE.

Patton received a Ph.D. from Texas A&M, a masters degreefrom the University of Pittsburgh and a bachelors degree fromthe University of Texas at Austin.

For his accomplishment Patton received a bronze medal,certificate and cash prize, which is funded by the IEEE IndustryApplications Society.

technology, which requires photoli-thography and diffusion. Eknoyansaid the students who work on thoseprojects help make and characterizethem. Research sponsors haveincluded the State of Texas, the

National ScienceFoundation, theDefense Advanced

Research ProjectAgency, Rome AirDevelopmentCenter, 3M,Lockheed Martin,Rockwell Interna-tional, Input/OutputInc. and AMP Inc.

The business offiber optics and optical telecommunica-tion is booming-its a big market,Eknoyan said. The experience thatstudents gain from their efforts here isin a big demand now.

He added that not only is thereindustry support but the studentsget to interact with the industrysponsor, giving them an advantageafter graduation, and that moststudents graduating from theprogram have gone on to success-ful careers.

[Former students] appreciate thework theyve done in integratedoptics at Texas A&M and have madesubstantial advancements in theirchosen occupations, Eknoyan said.And while this may not be asfuturistic as Star Trek, its a step inthe right direction. We are doingresearch for the next generation.

Patton Receives IEEE Honor

This integrated optical switchsline width is approximatelyequal to 10 human hairs.

The Department of Electrical Engineer-ing received more than a half-million-dollarsfrom Motorola for theAnalog and Mixed-Signal Processing Group and WirelessCommunications Laboratory (WCL).

Mario Rivas, Motorola corporate vicepresident and general manager of MotorolaSemiconductors Wireless SubscriberSystems Group in Austin, presented thefirst $500,000 gift in an Aug. 4 ceremony.

Analog and mixed-signal design arecritical skills to the industry as semiconduc-

tors become more and more integrated,Rivas said. Motorola looks forward toincluding these [Texas A&M University]graduates in our future system-on-a-chipdevelopment programs.

To be paid over a five-year period, the giftwill support activities of the analog and mixed-signal research program in the department. Itwill primarily fund research assistantships toincrease the quantity and quality of graduates.

Analog technology is vital in anincreasingly digital world to process real-world information, such as light, tempera-ture or the sound of a voice on a wireless

phone call. Since 1980, Texas A&M hasoffered the states only graduate specialty inanalog and mixed-signal circuits and systems.

We are well on our way to building one ofthe nations premier university analog andmixed signal programs, said Dr. ChananSingh, head of the Department of ElectricalEngineering. This gift from Motorola is arecognition of the work done by our facultyand students and it will further enhance ourresearch and educational endeavors.

This gift from Motorola will allow us tooffer our graduate students a better infrastruc-ture, similar to what theyll find in industry,added Dr. Edgar Snchez-Sinencio, professor

and group leader for the Analog and Mixed-Signal Processing Group.The second $60,000 gift from Motorola to the

Wireless Communications Laboratory (WCL) isdesigned to give students and faculty membersan opportunity to do fundamental research in thearea of telecommunications.

Dr. Costas Georghiades, professor anddirector of the Telecommunications and SignalProcessing Group, said the gift from Motorolacame as a result of mutual research needs.

Some time ago we had visited Motorola andgave presentations on our general researchinterests in the laboratory, which cover a wide

area in the general telecommunications field,he said. In that and subsequent meetings itwas clear that we had a large number ofcommon research interests with Motorola. Toname a few, we are both very interested inalgorithms for efficient implementation of turbocoding/decoding, space-time signal processingand multi-user detection.

Georghiades said graduate students willbenefit directly from the funding provided byMotorola through research assistantships tofund their doctoral or masters thesis research.In addition, contacts with Motorola technicalpersonnel will educate students in industryperspectives to their research problems, thus

providing them with a well-rounded education.For undergraduate students, he said theimmediate benefit will be in better opportunitiesto co-op with relevant Motorola groups,facilitated by a close cooperation withMotorola. In the longer term, Georghiadeshopes to involve undergraduate students inresearch of interest to Motorola.

Motorola, Inc., headquartered inSchaumberg, Ill, is one of the leadingproviders of wireless communications,advanced electronic systems, componentsand services. The company employs morethan 140,000 people on six continents.

Patton

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Dr. Mladen Kezunovic has been named tothe first Eugene E. Webb Professorship inElectrical Engineering at Texas A&MUniversity.

Kezunovic, who has been at Texas A&Msince 1987, is an electrical engineering profes-sor and directs the Electric Power & PowerElectronics Institute. The endowed professor-ship honors the late Webb, a 1943 Texas A&Melectrical engineering graduate and a GeneralDynamics engineer in Fort Worth for more than40 years.

Kezunovic also is a Fellow of the global320,000-member Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers(IEEE). He specializes in power system control and protection.

Last fall Kezunovic received the E.D. Brockett Professor-ship. He is a former Fulbright Scholar and a Senior Fellow of theTexas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), a state researchagency and a member of The Texas A&M University System.

Kezunovic has consulted for numerous national andinternational firms including Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba inJapan, Southern California Edison, Electricite de France,Entergy Services Inc., Reliant Energy HL&P, Hydro Quebec,Wisconsin Power and Light, ComEd in Chicago and

TECHRON Inc.He has published more than 210 journal and conferencepapers. Kezunovic has given more than 50 invited lectures inover 20 countries.

Before coming to Texas A&M, Kezunovic taught briefly atWashington State University, was on the faculty at theUniversity of Sarajevo and worked in industry forWestinghouse Electric in the U.S. and Energoinvest companyin Sarajevo.

Kezunovic received his Ph.D. and masters degree from theUniversity of Kansas. He has an undergraduate degree from theUniversity of Sarajevo.

Kezunovic Named Webb Professor Narayanan Earns ATP Award

Kezunovic

Sanchez-Sinencio Awarded IEEE

CASS Golden Jubilee Medal

Designing practical coding schemes for futurewireless data networks (WDN) is the objective ofDr. Krishna Narayanan, earning him an AdvancedTechnology Program (ATP) Award from theTexas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Narayanan, an assistant professor in theDepartment of Electrical Engineering at TexasA&M University, recently received this $72,600award, which was designed to promote thestates economic growth and diversification byincreasing the number and quality of scientistsand engineers in Texas.

These wireless data networks will be designed topossess high spectral efficiency and power efficiency. The use oftransmitter and receiver antenna diversity in conjunction with efficientchannel coding is a key technology for future wireless networks.

Turbo codes and space-time codes are some of the remarkabledevelopments in coding theory in recent years. Although turbocodes provide excellent error performance, the associated highdecoding complexity is a serious limitation in using them in somepractical applications.

With his research grant, Narayanan will design practical codingschemes for WDNs that have low decoding complexity, yet provideexcellent performance by combining the concept of turbo coding andspace-time coding, exploiting some characteristics of the modulatorand the channel and designing low-complexity decoding techniques.

Some of the issues addressed in this proposal are the design ofturbo codes for multiple transmit antennas (turbo space-time codes)and multi-carrier systems, exploiting the memory in the modulator andthe channel to improve power efficiency, low-complexity soft-outputdecoding and the design of practical receivers.

This research is among several of Narayanans interests, whichinclude interference rejection for TDMA and CDMA systems,equalization and coding for magnetic recording and wireless commu-nications and VLSI architecuters for turbo decoders.

Narayanan joined the department in 1999 in the area of Telecom-munications and Signal Processing. He received his Ph.D. fromGeorgia Institute of Technology, his M.S. from Iowa State Universityand his B.S. from Coimbatore Institute of Technology in India.

Dr. Edgar Snchez-Sinencio from the Depart-ment of Electrical Engineer-ing at Texas A&M Univer-sity, received one of theGolden Jubilee Medalscommemorating the 50thanniversary of the Instituteof Electrical and ElectronicsEngineers (IEEE) Circuits &Systems Society (CASS).

Sanchez received themedal for his exceptional contribu-

tions toward advancing the Societysgoals during its first half-century. Thetask of selecting the medal recipientswas made by the Societys 1999Awards Committee.

Sanchez, who joined the departmentin 1984 after serving as a visitingprofessor, currently serves as professor.He also is group leader for the Analogand Mixed Signal Group.

Other recent recognitions includebeing named the inaugural TI AnalogChair. He also has received theHalliburton Professorship Award of

Excellence and the IEEEGuillemin-Cauer Award.

Sanchezs researchinterests includecontinuous-time filtersand oscillators,switched capacitornetworks, computer-aided analysis anddesign, neural networkshardware implementa-tions, design and

construction of MOS integrated

circuits, applications of operationaltransconductance amplifiers,current-mode techniques, CMOSimplementations of neural networksand fuzzy logic circuits.

He received his doctoral degreein electrical engineering from theUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, his masters degreefrom Stanford University and aCommunications and ElectronicsEngineer professional degree fromthe National Polytechnic Institute ofMexico.

Sanchez-Sinencio

Narayanan

Dr. Jo W. Howze, professor of electricalengineering, was one of two engineeringfaculty members at Texas A&M Universitynamed inaugural holders of the Ford MotorCompany Professorship for his expertise inteaching and curriculum development.

The professorships are part of theFord/Texas A&M Strategic Alliance,established in May with a $1.75 milliondonation from Ford Motor Company.

Howze, who received the professorshipwith aerospace engineering professor, Dr.

Dimitris C. Lagoudas, has been a faculty member since 1972. Heis the undergraduate program coordinator and former depart-ment head of the electrical engineering department.

Howzes research interests include theory and applicationsof control systems, dynamical systems modeling, linearsystems, hybrid vehicles and optimization.

He has received an Association of Former Students Distin-guished Teaching Award and the Charles W. CrawfordTeaching Award from the Dwight Look College of Engineering

He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and ElectronicEngineers and a member of the American Society for EngineerinEducation and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Howze received his Ph.D, masters and bachelors degreesfrom Rice University.

Howze Named Ford Professor

Howze

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Two staff members in the Department ofElectrical Engineering at Texas A&M Univer-sity were cited in December for their outstand-ing employment accomplishments by theDwight Look College of Engineering.

Jessie Hernandez was presented theEngineering Safety Excellence Award and LisaLister won the Outstanding Support Staff

Achievement Award.Hernandez, instrumentshop supervisor, beganworking in the electricalengineering department in 1986as an electronic technician, aposition he held until 1990 andagain from 1991 to 1995, whenhe was promoted to his currentposition.

As instrument shop supervisor, Hernandezis responsible for lab safety. He is said to oftengo beyond required duties. Jessie Hernandezhas made major contributions to our programthat go beyond his job description, said

Department Head Dr. Chanan Singh in hisnomination letter.This not only has improved departmental

productivity, but also has improved the safetyof the department and college, according toone nomination letter. One of his accomplish-ments was the initiation of CPR training forlaboratory training assistants (TAs).

This took many hours of effort in theevening, which was the only time all TAs could

be brought together, said Assistant Depart-ment Head Dr. Robert Nevels in his nominationletter. His efforts have paid off as evidenced

by the lack of any major health safety problems

during his tenure here.In addition to CPR training, Hernandez has

implemented many other procedures to ensuresafety not only in the laboratories but alsothroughout the entire department. He is amember of the Zachry Engineering CenterSafety Committee.

Lister, staff assistant to the department head,

contributes significantly to the department notonly through her work ethicbut also because of her greatattitude and her willingness togo the extra mile, according toa nomination letter.

Lister started in theelectrical engineering depart-ment in 1988 as a wordprocessing operator and was

transferred into a senior secretary positionwithin the year. A few months later she waspromoted to technical secretary. In 1997 Listerwas promoted to her current position.

During her stay of 11 years with thedepartment, Lisa has consistently taken moreresponsibilities than required of her andperformed them in an excellent fashion, saidSingh in his nomination letter. Lisa Lister takesher job seriously. When she has a slow period,she will come and ask for more work or voluntar-ily help other staff. This is truly exceptional andexemplary.

Her skills and willingness to work hard areappreciated, as well as her attitude towards bothfellow employees and students.

She has always been a team player andvolunteers to help with true enthusiasm, addsAdministrative Assistant Debbie Hanson.

Lister/Hernandez Win Staff Awards

Parallel Algorithms for VLSI CAD and AMATLAB Compilation Environment forDistributed Heterogeneous Adaptive Systemswere topics of the Distinguished Lecture Seriesgiven by Dr. Prith Banerjee in March.

Banerjee, the Walter P. Murphy Professorand chairman of electrical and computerengineering at NorthwesternUniversity, presented the lectures

to students and faculty members inthe Department of ElectricalEngineering at Texas A&MUniversity.

During his lecture on theMATLAB Compilation, Banerjeesaid adaptive systems constitute anew class of computing andcommunication systems, which are composedof configurable hardware capable of system-level adaptation.

He then discussed an experimental type ofsoftware system he is working on that willtake MATLAB descriptions of variousembedded systems applications in signal and

image processing and automatically map themto an adaptive computing environment.In his second lecture, Banerjee determined

that parallel processing for VLSI CAD applica-tions was becoming recognized as a popular

Banerjee Speaks On Computer Engineeringvehicle to support the increasing computingrequirements of future CAD tools.

With these parallel algorithms, Banerjeesaid runtime has been reduced from days tohours. He then showed the results of theseapplications on various parallel platforms.

In addition to his endowed professor-ship, Banerjee is director of theCenter for Parallel and Distributed

Computing at Northwestern. Hereceived his Ph.D. in electricalengineering from the University ofIllinois at Urbana-Champaign in1984.

His research interests are inParallel Algorithms for VLSI DesignAutomation and Compilers for

Parallel Computers, and he is the author ofmore than 200 papers in these areas. Banerjeealso is the recipient of the 1996 FrederickEmmons Award and was elected to the Fellowgrade of the Institute of Electrical and Electron-ics Engineers (IEEE) in 1995 and the Associa-tion for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 2000.

The Department of Electrical Engineeringpresents this year-long program of lecturesto broaden the horizons of faculty, studentsand friends interested in the progress ofelectrical engineering.

Dr. Prasad Enjeti waselected to the rank ofFellow of the Institute ofElectrical and ElectronicEngineers (IEEE), one ofthe highest distinctionsfrom the organization.

Enjeti, a professor, isone of 16 faculty membersin the Department ofElectrical Engineering, toreach the rank of Fellow,in addition to four professors with jointappointments with the department. This isconsidered a significant honor since the numberof IEEE members who may be advanced toFellow grade in one year is 0.10 percent of thetotal 320,000 Institute membership.

Enjeti began working for the department asan assistant professor in 1988. His primaryresearch interests are advanced converters forpower supplies and motor drives, powerquality issues and active power filter develop-ment, utility interface issues and CleanPower converter designs. He has two UnitedStates patents and has licensed two newtechnologies to the industry.

Other honors include the IEEE-IAS secondand third best paper award in 1993, 1996, 1998and 1999; second best IEEE-IAS transactionpaper published in mid-year 1994 to mid-year1995; and the IEEE-IAS Magazine Prize ArticleAward in the year 1996.

Enjeti received his Ph.D from ConcordiaUniversity in Montreal, Canada, his mastersdegree from the Indian Institute of Technol-ogy in Kanpur, India, and his bachelorsdegree from Osmania University in India.

Enjeti Elected toRank of IEEE Fellow

Enjeti

Dr.Narasimha Reddypre sen ts Banerj eewith a plaque.

Hernandez/Lister

A new professorrecently joined the Analogand Mixed Signal Group inthe Department ofElectrical Engineering atTexas A&M University.

Dr. Aydin Karsilayan,comes from Portland StateUniversity where he had aresearch assistantship. He

began working for thedepartment during theSpring 2000 semester. Hehas interned for Triquint Semiconductor inPortland, where he worked on negative supplygenerators, charge-pump circuits and oscillatorsfor a wide temperature range and process

variations. He also interned for VESTELElectronics Company and ASELSAN (MilitaryElectronics Industry), both in Turkey.

Karsilayan received the Outstanding Ph.D.Student Award at Portland State University. Heis the author of several published articles.

He received his Ph.D. from Portland State,and his masters and bachelors degrees fromBilkent University in Turkey.

Karsilayan Joins EE

Karsilayan

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pre-war era. It was their wisdom and goodjudgement that provided the eventualfunding for the fellowship.

Going to A&M was my decision and Idont know why. I think it just had to be

because one of my idols at Boerne [myhometown] had gone to A&M, he said. Myparents didnt have any influence one way orthe other. Whatever I did was okay. Myfailures were not a thing to be chastisedabout. They trusted me to be doing the best

that I could.I didnt express my gratitude when theywere alive, he added. Thats a shame. Youread about this all the time where you donttell your parents how you feel about them.

Though his choice of college wasntalways obvious, Ebensberger said his choiceof career was, going back to an incident whenhe was young.

I was inspired, or aimed in that directionby a family friend who was the local superin-tendent of the San Antonio public servicecompany, which supplied power to that partof Texas. His name was Manning Francis. Hewas transferred to New Braunfels later, hesaid, adding that during a visit with Francis,

he made his career decision. He took me to apower plant in New Braunfels and balanced adime on this great big generator. He showedme how stable that generator was, (the dime)would sit there and stay on its edge while thegenerator was running.

And this demonstration left a lastingimpression. I remember when our first gradeteacher went around and asked each of us whatwe wanted to do in life. I said I wanted to build

big electric motors, Ebensberger said. I had noidea what was involved.

After graduating as an electrical engineer,Ebensberger said he still wasnt sure what hislifes work would be--whether to enter thefamily-owned lumber yard business with hisfather or pursue an engineering career in a fieldin which he had no experience. Engineering jobs

were very scarce. Fortunately, a job offer cameto him from another Aggie at the New MexicoCollege of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts inMesilla Park near Las Cruces, New Mexico.

I got a sight-unseen offer, he said. Ipacked up my car and drove out there andsaid here I am. It was a wonderful job. Goodpeople to work with and very interestingprojects to work on. My employer was thePhysical Science Laboratory (PSL), an off-shoot of the Physics Department.

Ebensberger said the PSL was founded toprovide data reduction services for themilitary agencies involved in missile work atthe nearby White Sands Proving Ground

From the outside looking in you cannotunderstand it; from the inside looking out youcannot explain it.

A statement well known to Texas A&MUniversity students, both current and past,that tries to explain the schools spirit andtraditions.

Today incoming freshmen are taught thisquotation. When A. C. Ebensberger was astudent in the Department of ElectricalEngineering, he said he learned these wordsthrough experience.

Ebensberger entered Texas A&M duringthe rocky period surrounding World War II.He claims that he was not the exemplarystudent, and though he was originally classof 43 he didnt get his diploma until 1947.

I guess I really didnt know how to studyand I was too darn lazy to go over thingsagain and again, he said. I would have done

better if I had. You dont really know whatelectricity is. Its a pretty evasive subject. Forsome reason Ive been able to adapt and

accept the principles of handling some of it.Unfortunately his studies were interruptedwhen he was inducted into the army. Whilethere Ebensberger was assigned to theelectronics school at Harvard University, thento MIT to study radar and later to Hicksville,Long Island to learn high-power radiotransmitters. He said he felt the Harvardtraining was the best and most advanced ofits kind, so he contacted Texas A&M totransfer some credits back to Aggieland tograduate.

I got my degree because someone [atA&M] bent the rules a little bit to accommo-date, he said, adding that when he camehome after the war Texas A&M officials let

him transfer and substitute enough credits sohe only needed six more hours for a degree.Gosh I was thrilled when they came backand said you just need to take thermodynam-ics and economics.

So Ebensberger took those classes and a fewmore hours of coursework to finish the neededsemester in January 1947. I think thats why Imso grateful, he said. If I had earned it theharder way, I dont think Id feel the same way.[Texas A&M officials] were very kind to me.

Ebensberger demonstrates his Aggie spiritin one room of his house, which is covered inTexas A&M memorabilia, from his diploma, toan A&M clock, to rugs and other miscella-neous items.

I dont run around patting myself on theback hollering Aggie this and Aggie that, he said. Its confined to this room. My familyknows. Ive got a heck of a lot of loyalty tothe old school.

And Ebensberger showed his gratitude toTexas A&M and the Department of ElectricalEngineering by endowing a fellowship in hisparents names, the B. Pat and FriedaEbensberger Graduate Fellowship, currentlyfunded at more than $200,000.

Ebensberger said he named the fellowshipafter his parents because of the support theygave him in all of his career decisions,especially since times were tough during that

Ebensberger RecallsLife After Graduation

See EBENSBERGER- page 7

Ebensberger enjoys spending time in his Aggiememorabilia room.

(WSPG). This effort was expanded to includeoperation of ground telemetering stations,monitoring and recording data transmittedfrom the missiles fired at WSPG. Ebensber-gers specific job duties involvedtelemetering, which brought him into contactwith recognized scientists and trips aboard

Navy ships to off shore Peru and theAlaskan Gulf.

It was very interesting and exciting workprobably characterized as operational

engineering, he said. After five years Idecided that my resume should includedesign engineering too. Though I reallyhated to leave PSL and New Mexico, Imanaged to find employment with CollinsRadio Company in Dallas.

Ebensberger said Collins was highlyregarded in the fields of airborne communication and amateur radio equipment and was

building product lines in microwave andmultiplex communication equipment. Heworked there for 18 years, eight in engineer-ing and 10 in quality assurance.

Ebensberger said he liked working atCollins because the design work he wasinvolved in was very interesting, but times

were changing.I could comprehend and work withvacuum tubes, but then along comes thetransistor, he said. You cant look at themthe same way you do a vacuum tube. They

brought in a Ph.D. from the University ofTexas [at Austin] to bring us up to speed ontransistors and transistor design. That kindof left me behind.

Ebensberger said this difficulty under-standing the new technology and anadvancement into supervision persuaded himinto early retirement.

I didnt really enjoy this as much as Idlike to have, because I was not really aleadership kind, he said. Im a loner and I

prefer to work with my hands and by myself.Ebensberger said he and his wife, Pearl,whom he met on a blind date, bought some landnorth of Dallas with money from investments.Eventually they built a house, moving there in1970 to become farmers. On the farm, whichincreased to about 250 acres, he and Pearl raisedtheir two sons, Gary and Grady, and they nowhave three grandchildren.

In addition to the farming and cattleoperation, the opportunity to operate heavyequipment presented itself and I began doingcustom bull dozer work, he said. Here wasfulfillment. At the end of the day I could lookaround and see that I had done something.Quite different from having spent the day in

meeting or sitting behind a desk.Of course this brought some interestingproblems to the surface. Ebensberger said thheavy, 12-ton machine had to be transportedso a towing vehicle and trailer were needed.Ebensberger was able to put his generalengineering knowledge to play when hedesigned and built the necessary accessoriefor the used truck, including the bed andwinch assembly.

These were assembled into a trailersuitable for hauling the dozer in my own shoon the farm, he said. There was good luckin locating a suitable used running gear and

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6

Congratulations to the following graduate and undergraduate students chosen to receive Department of Electrical Engineer-ing fellowships and scholarships. These awards by the Graduate Studies Committee are based on publications and conferencepapers submitted by the applicants

Graduate Fellowships and ScholarshipsTexTECScholarships

Udayan DasguptaQinghua LiYingxue LiBen LuYan LiuMurali Menon

FellowshipsDongyan ChenVivek GulatiJeffrey McDougallYongzhe Xie

TI FellowshipsAdriana Becker

Marcia Mendez-RiveraAntonio Mondragon-TorresZhang Xiayong

Fouraker GraduateFellowshipJennifer Dworak

Undergraduate Scholarships and Fellowshipsj

Raymond Van HookMemorial ScholarshipJennifer Gullickson

Tuan Anh PhamPhilip PollackAdam T. SniderJames Wingfield

Marvin WadsworthSmith ScholarshipClark JarvisAaron PattonWesley Weibel

Willard P. WorleyScholarshipJeffrey BergeronChristine Worstell

Ben Thigpen ScholarshipCarolyn Chadwell

Undergraduate ResearchFellowshipsPeter BourellJuan Carlos JuarezCharles KidderMuhammed S. QureshiJiaying ShiAllen Thomson

Bolton-Kennedy ScholarsMatthew BraunsteinJames BreckenridgeTierney Bruce

William Chase HefflefingerScott HillerJason JungAndrew PuryearJason WickerBolton-Whitaker ScholarsCasey Sam AndersonDavid CummingsHai Dinh Hoang

Corporate SponsoredScholarshipsKurt Champion - CPLIris Foyt - CPLArmando Garza - CPLKristopher Klaus - SprintAustin Knight-Fluor DanielKenneth McDougall - ChevronEric Schrock - CPLJoseph Sims - ChevronDouglas Turk - SWEMAg

Schlumberger FoundationAsif MahbubNokia ScholarshipsLori DaltonDavid Walker GuidryJohnny Tran

EPPE FellowshipsXavier CarcelleAli EmadiRahul Khopkar

Nader SamaanSanjeev Srivastava

Department ScholarshipsSebastien GayMing HuaArthi KrishnamurthyHyokwon NamSiddhartha RoyPierre SeigneurbieuxKrishna SreerambhatlaBharath K. ThandriShan Yuan

Department FellowshipsSooncheol BaegGe GaoPreeti GopalanChristopher Rodenbeck

Graduate Merit FellowshipMin Wu

Scholarship and Fellowship Winners

College Of EngineeringKinshuk BakshiPatrick ChineryXuechao DuRaguram KamakshisundaramAdedayo KuforijiHsin-Hui KuoMurali MenonMuthukumar ShanmugampillaaiSuresh SivakumarSau-Hsuan WuShengjie Zhao

MS Nokia ScholarshipsVivek GulatiYogen N. Deshpande

Motorola FellowshipsChunyu Xin

Reliant Energy HL&PFellowshipsPreeti GopalanMilos Todorovic

Lewis M. Haupt 27ScholarshipScott M. Olschewsky

Kevin D. FaskeScholarshipBrian Correll

William Shula ScholarshipChiang TanTxTEC ScholarshipsCasey AndersonMichael BurnsLori DaltonChase HefflefingerGregory HewesAsif MahbubMichael Moreland

Tim OusleyEric PhamHuu-Loi PhanMohammed PulakMuhammad S. QureshiEPPE ScholarshipsBrian CorrellDavid GurleySean HeinrothBrian JohnsonDavid JoinerJason KithasMonica Medina

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Gifts and endowments help in attracting and educating top quality students, reward-ing and retaining top quality faculty and promoting the growth of the department. Wewould be delighted to discuss further with you how to make a gift or establish anendowment in your own name or the name of a loved one. Endowments may also take theform of naming a laboratory or the department. Gifts of any size may also be made to theElectrical Engineering Development Fund to help the growth of the department.

For more information, contact:David Wilkinson, Director of DevelopmentDwight Look College of EngineeringTexas A&M UniversityCollege Station, TX 77843-3126Phone (979) 845-5113Email d-wilkinson@tamu.edu

Dr. Chanan Singh, Deparment HeadDepartment of Electrical EngineeringTexas A&M UniversityCollege Station, TX 77843-3128Phone (979) 845-7589Email singh@ee.tamu.edu

Gift and Endowment Information

the whole job of assembly was completedwith minimal help. There were a few costoverruns, but overall the job was completedat minimum cost and with great personalsatisfaction when the freshly painted

vehicles took to the road confidentlyhauling the big yellow dozer.

He also is a ham radio enthusiast, talkingwith friends on Mondays and Thursdays.

My proudest hour was in being able toprovide the radio hook-up between a localmother and father with their studentdaughter doing research for a doctorate in

biology over in Sierra Leone, the highly-troubled country in West Africa. This was

before things got as bad as they have beenrecently. Shes since received her Ph.D. andis currently working at the Smithsonian inWashington D.C.

Its now to the point that I dont do muchanymore, Ebensberger adds. We rent out allthe cultivated land. I dont run cattle anymore. Ido try to raise some hay, thats a real challenge.Theres always something coming up.

Through the years hes seen manychanges from telephones and television to theway the students are taught in electricalengineering.

We had hand-cranked telephones when Iwas a kid, Ebensberger said. There arechanges everywhere. Everyone in theelectrical engineering department is so farahead of what I can remember.

I cant imagine how people pass through[Texas A&M] in four years with all the thingsthey have to learn compared to what we did. Icant imagine going back and repeating what Idid. Some of these things I couldnt havepassed.

And while many of the changes are for thebetter, Ebensberger believes the quality of lifeseems to be deteriorating.

The whole world is just different then itused to be, he said. I dont know why allthese terrible things are happening like theydo on the street. Maybe its the bulgingpopulation. It has taken away individualresponsibility. Although Ebensberger

believes he has lived through the best, hedoes have one other regret.

I never did build my big motor, he said.I wouldnt know where to start. That wasthe subject we were getting to at A&Mwhen the war took us away. When I wasthere very little was taught about electron-ics, it was mostly devoted to power. That

changed with our involvement in WorldWar II.

Things have turned out well, he said,adding that hes grateful to Dr. ChananSingh, electrical engineering departmenthead, for the opportunity to discuss hisaccomplishments after graduation.

Ive been very lucky in many ways.When I look back at how I got here, it justsimply could not have been done withoutthe [Texas] A&M experience and especiall

the bending of rules that permitted me toget that cherished degree in electricalengineering. I hope Ive never dishonoredthat gift and trust, so I feel driven, maybemore than others, to give something back.Hopefully it matters.

EBENSBERGER-contd. from page 5

Dedicated and supportive were just twowords used to describe Ella Gallagher and

Nancy Reichart, winners of the most recentStaff Achievement Awards distributed bythe Department of Electrical Engineering atTexas A&M University.

The awards were presented to Reichartand Gallagher at the departments annualChristmas party in December, which waslocated at the Tavern in College Station.

Gallagher was nominated for herdedication and hard work. She beganworking for the department in 1988 as aword processor operator, quickly movingup the corporate ladder. In March 1989 shewas promoted to technical secretary, aposition she held until her promotion tostaff assistant for the Analog and MixedSignal Processing Group in 1998.

She has supported our work in allpossible ways and has definitely exceededexpectations, said group leader Dr. EdgarSanchez-Sinencio in the nomination letter.

Reichart is considered a best example ofa support staff ready to do assigned work

with excellence. She began working for theElectric Power and Power Electronics groupin 1997 as Staff Assistant.

During this relatively short time Nancyhas distinguished herself as a hard workerand dedicated professional, said Dr.Mladen Kezunovic, EPPE group leader inthe nomination letter. She has worked on a

variety of assignments. In all of theassignments Nancy has shown greatenthusiasm, a creative approach to fulfillingthe assignments, a team player attitude andextreme efficiency.

The award consisted of a plaque and acheck for $500.

Other prize winners at the Christmasparty were Lisa Lister and Billene Mercer,who won the Best Dressed Category.

In addition to the awards ceremony,unique entertainment was provided byfaculty members. Dr. James Biard openedwith a couple of tunes played on the sawand finished his set with some songsplayed on a variety of harmonicas ormouth organs, with a little accompani-ment from Dr. B. Don Russell.

The night ended with music played byDr. Shankar Bhattacharyya on a stringedinstrument called a Sarod.

Gallagher/Reichart WinAchievement Awards

Two new staff members joined theDepartment of Electrical Engineering atTexas A&M University during the springsemester.

Kenneth Ray is the departments newMicrocomputer Specialist and Lisa Reyesis the new Technical Secretary for theAnalog and Mixed Signal Group.

Ray began work in the department inMarch. Prior to Texas A&M, he wasemployed as a Network Technician II for

the Texas State Technical College (TSTC)and IT Manager for CSI Inc., both in Waco.He received his AAS degree in ComputerScience from the TSTC in Waco.

Reyes transferred from the MechanicalEngineering Department where sheworked as a Technical Secretary, thoughshes not new to the department. She hadworked as a Technical Secretary andClerk III in electrical engineering beforegoing to work with Mechanical Engineer-ing. She is a graduate of Bryan HighSchool.

Two New Staff MembersJoin EE Department

Gallagher, left, and Reichart, right, receive theirawards from Dr. Henry Taylor.

Reyez/Ray

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8

The Department of Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University would like tothank the following supporters for their contributions to this years Annual Fund. Thisfund was established for scholarships, recruiting and other items not covered by stateor tuition in order to compete for the retention of the finest students and faculty. Theunrestricted gift categories were as follows:

Electrical Engineerings Annual Fund Donors

Sponsor -$5,000 +

EE Friend -Up to $250

EE Supporter -$250-$499

EE Benefactor -$500-999

EE Patron -$1,000-$4,999

This years donors are:Reed Adams - SupporterJames R. Biard - FriendJohn E. Boelte - Supporter

Richard C. Booton, Jr. - FriendJames A. Burke - FriendJose Caballero - FriendAnthony W. Calle - SupporterDavid C. Copeland - FriendMr. And Mrs. Ignacio Davila - FriendR. William Ezell - FriendChad Gamble - FriendJ. Bradley Gates - FriendQuy Ha - SupporterJimmy Hinton - FriendSunitha Kadirvel - FriendJose Lozano, Jr. - FriendDavid E. Meeh - Friend

Grady Muldrow - FriendHideo Nagumo - FriendManford F. Noster - SupporterFrank Parma - FriendJim Rector - SupporterLeonard E. K. Ryan - BenefactorWalter Stoerkel - FriendH. W. Swan, Jr. - FriendHenry A. Thomas - SponsorDonelle Wiechman - FriendWilliam M. Monty Wilkins - FriendLarry and Patty Williams - FriendAnthony Wood - BenefactorSamer G. Younis - Sponsor

For more information about the

Annual Fund, visit our website at

ee.tamu.edu/News/annualfund.html

A new professorrecently joined theAnalog and MixedSignal Group of theDepartment of ElectricalEngineering at Texas

A&M University,though his name mayseem familiar.

Dr. Ugur ilingirogluwas promoted from

visiting professor toprofessor effective the Spring 2000semester.

He first began working for Texas A&Mas a research associate during the 1984-85school year, quickly becoming promoted to

visiting assistant professor during the1985-86 school year. He later was offeredan assistant professorship at Texas A&Mand worked in this position from 1988-1991.

ilingiroglu then rejoined the faculty atTexas A&M as visiting professor duringthe 1999 school year.

In addition to his positions at TexasA&M, ilingiroglu has taught at IstanbulTechnical University (ITU) in Turkey,starting as research assistant and workinghis way up to professor. He also was headof the Electronics and CommunicationEngineering Department at ITU for a yearand was a member of the faculty board inthe Electrical and Electronics EngineeringCollege there.

ilingiroglu also was director andcofounder of the ETA ASIC Design Centerin Istanbul, principal investigator for aresearch project called Capacitive Thresh-old Logic and a consultant on otherprojects.

Currently he is a member of the advisoryboard for the Turkish Electronics IndustrialAssociation; the selection committee forthe Deutscher AkademischerAustauschdienst, British Council andTurkish Education Postgraduate Scholar-ship Programs; and the Institute of Electri-cal and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

His awards and recognitions include theEta Kappa Nu Outstanding ProfessorAward, the National Science FoundationResearch Award, the Fulbright Research

Fellowship and the CENTO Scholarship.ilingiroglu also has published manyjournal articles, tutorials and a bookentitled Systematic Analysis of Bipolarand MOS Transistors (Artech House,

Norwood, MA, 1993).ilingiroglu received his Ph.D. from

Southampton University in England, hismasters degree from ITU and a certificatein Personnel and Finance Administration,Communication in Education fromLoughborough University of Technologyin England.

ilingiroglu Joins

EE FacultyDrs. Xiaodong Wang and Zixiang Xiong,

assistant professors for the Department ofElectrical Engineering, received the presti-gious Faculty Early Career Development(CAREER) Award, which is sponsored bythe National Science Foundation (NSF).

The NSF established the CAREERprogram to support junior faculty within thecontext of their overall career development,combining in a single program the supportof research and education of the highestquality and in the broadest sense. Throughthis program, the NSF emphasizes theimportance on the early development ofacademic careers dedicated to stimulatingthe discovery process in which the excite-ment of research is enhanced by inspiredteaching and enthusiastic learning.

The synergy of frontier-level discoveryskills with the learning process and continu-ous educational innovation lies at the heartof these awards, said NSF Acting DeputyDirector Joseph Bordona.

Wang received the award through hisresearch activities, which include multi-usercommunication theory and advanced signalprocessing for wireless communications.

This award was even more significantsince he received it after his first application.

Wang has worked in the areas of digitalcommunications, digital signal processing,parallel and distributed computing,nanoelectronics and quantum computing.His publication record includes 19 refereed

journal papers and 28 refereed or invitedconference papers. He also spent thesummer of 1997 at the Wireless Communica-

tions Department of the AT&T Labs -Research, in Red Bank, NJ, where he workedon performance analysis of dynamicfrequency hopping techniques for the thirdgeneration wireless cellular systems.

Wang joined the faculty in electricalengineering in 1998. He received his doctoraldegree from Princeton University, hismasters degree from Purdue University andhis bachelors degree from Shanghai JiaoTong University, China.

Xiongs research interests include imageand video coding, adaptive quantization and

fast algorithms, digital watermarking, jointsource channel coding, internet video,lossless medical image compression, imagerecovery, image rendering and colorquantization. He also has authored and co-authored several books and journal papers.

Xiong previously worked at the Univer-sity of Hawaii as an assistant professor and

began his duties at Texas A&M Universityin the fall of 1999.

Xiong received his doctoral degree fromthe University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, his masters degrees at theUniversity of Kansas and the IllinoisInstitute of Technology and his bachelorsdegree at Wuhan University in P.R. China.

Wang/Xiong ReceiveNSF CAREER Awards

Wang Xiong

Cilingiroglu

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Alumuni NewsC.G. Spike White, 35, of Branson, MO,

had previously worked as director for intramu-ral athletics and physical education and wasassistant dean of students at Texas A&MUniversity until he founded Kanakuk Kamp inMissouri, the flagship of eight Christ-cen-tered, sports-oriented camps serving thou-sands of kids each year. Though he has passed

on ownership of the camps to his son, Joe, hestill enjoys such outdoor activities as Kayaking,tackling portions of the 10 most challengingwhitewater rivers in the country. On Saturdaynights he hosts a radio call-in show for teens.

Kenton Brannan, 97, of Cypress TX worksas an underground engineer for Reliant En-ergy HL&P.

W. C. Gersch, 49, currently is building aranch home near the Panhandle in Texas. He iswiring his entire house with three and four wayswitches and is raising wheat, grain and sor-ghum and is having a ball in the wide openspaces. He previously worked for ChanceVaught Aircraft for 32 years and ElectroniqueAerospatial for three years.

Thomas G. Towns, 50, went to work withWestinghouse in 1950 until he retired in 1987.He died on June 27, 1999. He is survived by hiswife, Georgia, of 47 years; his daughter andson-in-law, Rita and Steve Scroggs; his sonsand daughters-in-law, David and Pat Towns;and Tommy and Sally Towns; six grandchil-dren; and his sister Virginia Barry.

Lee W. Atkinson, 83, of Houston, TX.,currently works as a PC architect for Compaq.He has six patents in his name and travels oftento Taiwan to coordinate design/construction.

LTC (Ret.) Richard I. Matthews, 63, diedon June 22, 1999.

Lih Kwok, 93, is a senior electrical engi-neer for Motorola Inc. in Singapore. He is

involved in the designing of wireless personalcommunicating devices and also is taking apart time MSEE course at the National Univer-sity of Singapore.

Hoon S. Kim, 98, is working in the Simula-tions and Analysis group in the MTS Systemswithin the Communications Systems Lab division

at Raytheon Systems Company. Opnet, a simula-tion application tool, which was developed bycompany called MIL3, is used to simulate and toanalyze various network situations.

Allan Lee Swindle, 82, is an engineer withGeneral Motors.

Dorothy Jackson, 85. For the past two yearsshe has resigned all positions of employment tostudy and follow the Word of God. She foundedthe Oklahoma Chapter of the Christian Fellow-

ship of Trailriders and has actively sought topromote the gospel of Christ while enjoying herfavorite interest which is horseback riding.

Stephen A. Clarke, 91, is an electrical engineerwith Occidental Chemical Corporation. He passedthe Professional Engineers Exam in April 1998.

Dale C. Flint, 97, says Howdy! He is anelectrical engineer with Motorola

John Bullard, 80, is the Training Coordina-tor with Lockheed-Martin in Marietta. He retiredfrom the USAF and his family has grown over the

years. Does anybody know where Chris Hinesis? I lost track of him years ago and would loveto hear from him.

Shane Stelmach, 91, is an ASIC ProductDevelopment Architect for Texas Instruments

(Dallas). He was elected in 1996 as MemberGroup Technical Staff, and currently works asmanager of ASIC Physical Architecture for deepsubmicron Product Development.

Morris Palmer, 82, is a staff manager -Apps Marketing for GTE.

Keith V. Groesche, 97, is a design engineerfor Daniel Measurement and Control, Inc.

Steve Pearson, 85, is a Member of the ScientificStaff for Northern Telecom/Wireless Networks. Heis currently developing software for Inter-working

between GSM and other wireless networks.Paul Tiner, 90, is a member of the technical

staff of Texas Instruments.Rob Crowe, 86, is a naval officer currently

working in Pascagoula,Paul C. Johnson, 86, is the Call Center Man-ager for Fisher-Rosemount Systems. He man-

ages an inbound technical support call center fora high-tech company in Austin (since 3/98).Fourth daughter Jane was born 1/6/99. He alsoserves on the board of the Austin Call CenterAlliance, which is an industry partnership with

the Austin Chamber of Commerce.Jack W. Pool, 60, is a Retired Mfgr. from

Farm & Ranch Service Co.Tarun S. Khandpur, 91, is an electrical

engineer (Digital Design) from Raytheon,Raytheon Systems Company, Aircraft Inte-gration Systems.

Allen P. Andrews, 97, is a systems engi-neer from Deep East Texas Electric Co-Op.

Hilary Whitaker Allen, Jr. 89, was re-cently promoted to Global Sales Vice Presi-dent, Power Systems Products, for LucentTechnologies. He is responsible for interna-tional sales of Power Systems products; pri-mary markets are Telecom Service Providers(Bell South, AT&T, Telefonica de Espana,etc.) and OEM Manufacturers (NEC, HewlettPackard, Nortel, IBM, Siemens, etc.). ThePower Systems Division is headquartered inMesquite, Texas; continue to be based inCoral Gables (Miami), Florida.

Jagan Gudur, 93, says Howdy Aggies!After graduation with a masters degree, heworked at IBM for about two years on theirRISC platforms and AIX operating system.He then spent the next two-and-one-half

years at a company called Interphase Corp.working on high-speed networking technolo-gies, including fast ethernet, FDDI, and giga-

bit ethernet. He now works at GTE in itsInformation Technology unit as a PrincipalMember of the Technical Staff.

In 1998, he received two GTE ChairmansLeadership awards - one for outstandingindividual contribution and the other for ex-ceptional team performance. He currently leadsa team of architects that provide state-of-the-art systems solutions to GTEs business units.

Pat Shuff, 83, is a systems engineer forSun Microsystems and has recently beenaccepted to the Ph.D. program at the Univer-sity of Houston in Electrical Engineering and

is working on continuing education certifi-cate at Stanford University in Computer Sci-ence. Three kids; 13, 4, and 1.

Jason Looney, 97, is a systems engineerfor RSI-Precision Controls.

Yasar Atiyeh, 90, is a technical writer forOneWorld Software Solutions.

By the year 2001, process technology willprovide 100 million transistors on a singlesilicon die. By the year 2009, there could be one

billion transistors.

In fact, there seems to be no end to thehigher performance expected of futuregenerations of microprocessors. The job ofcomputer engineers was to harness thesetransistors on behalf of higher performance.

Dr. Yale Patt, a professor of Electrical andComputer Engineering and the Ernest Cockrell,Jr. Centennial Chair in Engineering at theUniversity of Austin, made these predictionslast February in two presentations that usheredin the 21stCentury for the electrical engineeringdepartments Distinguished Lecture Series atTexas A&M University.

Performance is always about deliveringinstruction bandwidth to the core and then

Patt DisscussesFuture Of Computers

consuming that bandwidth said Patt in hisfirst lecture. That means very wide issuemachines combined with what it takes tosupport them. He discussed the majorchallenges to delivering high-instruction

bandwidth and to consuming that bandwidth.In his second lecture, Patt discussed the

computer science and engineering curriculum,including a new course for introducing studentsto computer engineering from the bottom up.

The focus of his research is generally five to10 years beyond current requirements.

Patt received his bachelors degree atNortheastern University and his masters andPh.D. at Stanford University. The Institute ofElectrical and Electronics Engineers hasrecognized Patt with the IEEE/ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award for important contributionsto instruc-tion level parallelism and superscalar processor design and the IEEE Wallace

W. McDowell Award for his impact on thehigh performance microprocessor industry viaa combination of important contributions to

both engineering and education.For his teaching accomplishments Patt

received the Outstanding Professor of theYear, from the Michigan Chapter of Eta Kappa

Nu and the National ACM Lectureship Pro-grams Outstanding Lecturer of the Year Award.

The Department of Electrical Engineeringpresents this year-long program of lectures to

broaden the horizons of faculty, students andfriends interested in the progress of electricalengineering.

Patt

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10

We Want YOU...

to visit our website!

http://ee.tamu.edu

EE BriefsProgress of Partnership Between the DSPand MSP Programs With TI Discussed

The progress of the partnership betweenTexas A&M Universitys Digital SignalProcessing (DSP) and Mixed Signal Processing(MSP) programs with Texas Instruments was thefocus of the third annual Texas InstrumentsDay.

After the opening address by electricalengineering Department Head Dr. ChananSingh, Gene Frantz, TI senior fellow andTorrence Robinson, manager of UniversityPrograms in research, gave presentations on theTI educational activities.

Drs. Costas Georghiades, Hamid Toliyat andMehrdad Ehsani gave updates on the threeDSP-funded research projects, followed by fourstudent presentations involved in the DSPprogram sponsored by TI. Three students in theMSP area followed with the final presentations.

The afternoon session included 40 posterpaper presentations in the Zachry EngineeringCenter lobby in the areas of Telecommunication/Signal Processing, Analog VLSI and Power

Electronics.The meeting, which was organized by Dr.Nasser Kehtarnavaz and Sonny Simpson,concluded with lab tours.

Caughlins Establish Engineering Scholarshipat Texas A&M

William G. and Jo Ann Caughlin of CollegeStation have endowed a scholarship at TexasA&M in memory of a loving father and longtimedepartmental staff member. The retired couples$25,000 gift creates the William L. CaughlinEndowed Scholarship in Electrical Engineering.

We appreciate the generosity of WilliamG. and Jo Ann Caughlin in establishing an

endowed scholarship in the memory of BillCaughlin, said Dr. Chanan Singh, electricalengineering department head. It is obviousthat Mr. Caughlin inspired his children toreceive higher education and to serve society

by helping others receive the gift as well.In his official capacity, Bill Caughlin

devoted 28 years to supervising instrumentrepair and student labor for the electricalengineering department. He maintained anddeveloped various electrical systems fortesting and experimentation

In his unofficial capacity, he served asconfidante and counselor to countless studentspursuing a university education, his son noted.

Education was very important to him,said William G. Caughlin, Texas A&M Classof 1949. Through his encouragement andhelp he saw that both his children graduatedfrom college. He extended this encourage-ment later in life to his grandchildren [andother young people] as well.

The senior Caughlin was born on aLeCompte, La., farm in 1907. During WorldWar II he worked as a constructionforeman building U.S. Navy destroyers inan Orange, Texas, shipyard.

He married his wife Ethel in 1928, andboth later worked at Texas A&M before

retiring in the 1970s. The couple celebratedtheir 71st wedding anniversary in March 1999

before he passed away last August afterseveral years of failing health.

The younger Caughlin and his wife areReveille members of the 12thMan Foundation,members of the Eternal Aggie Band, andmembers of the Endowed Diamond CenturyClub. They have two sons, both graduates ofTexas A&M: William C. Caughlin, Class of 1976,and Dr. G. Michael Caughlin, Class of 1977.

External Advisory and DevelopmentCouncil Meets

The External Advisory and DevelopmentCouncil for the Department of Electrical Engi-neering at Texas A&M University met inOctober to discuss the latest news and develop-ments and determine new ways to benefit thedepartment.

Dr. Chanan Singh, department head andprofessor, opened the session with an updateand an overview of the activities, including thegrowing number of students and their degreeoptions. He said with this growing enrollment inthe department, there is a need for more faculty

members to give the best possible education.Dr. Mark Yeary, lecturer, discussed currentprojects his ENGR 405 Senior Design Laboratoryclasses were working on, including projects withTexas Instruments, Ericsson and NationalInstruments.

Dr. Mehrdad Ehsani, professor, discussedthe project on the Advanced Vehicle Programfollowed by a lab demonstration by SeniorLecturer John Tyler on new computer equipmentprovided by National Instruments.

After lunch Dr. Jo Howze, professor,discussed interdisciplinary design projects withsponsorships from 3M and Ford MotorCompany.

Department of Electrical EngineeringHosts ONR WorkshopThe future direction of the Office of Naval

Research (ONR) was one topic of discussionduring a workshop on Electric ShipboardModeling, Simulation and Control.

Hosted by Texas A&M UniversitysDepartment of Electrical Engineering at theCollege Station Hilton, the two-day workshophad more than 30 attendees who were ONRprogram managers, industrial contractors andprincipal investigators. The principal investi-gators represented 12 universities from theUnited States and one Russian university.The timing of the workshop was at the midpoint

of the eight-year ONR electromechanic programof basic research in electric power systems. Thepurpose of the workshop was to documentwhere researchers are based on the last four

years of research and decide on the directionfor the next five-10 years. The goal of theworkshop was to have a rough outlineand research schedule by the end of thesecond day.

The first day of the workshop consisted ofa welcome by Dr. Chanan Singh, head of thedepartment; and an opening plenary session

by Terry Ericsen, ONR program manager, withan overview of the vision of the electricallyreconfigurable ship program.

Dr. Cliff Whitcomb, former ONR programmanager and associate professor of NavalArchitecture and Marine Engineering at MIT,discussed the research projects funded to datein the electromechanics program.

In the breakout sessions which followedspecific progress was reviewed and futureresearch directions were discussed. Thetopics of the breakout sessions weremodeling and simulation, control, and powequality and stability.

On the second day, a plenary sessionconsisted of an open discussion on thedevelopment of standard system topologiefor PI studies and summaries of the breakou

sessions by Whitcomb, Dr. Karen Butler,Texas A&M assistant professor and Dr.Dagmar Niebur.

National Instruments Brings High Tech ToClassrooms

Testing and measurement hardware andsoftware from National Instruments added anew dimension to undergraduate computerlabs this fall in Zachry Engineering Center andthe H.R. Bright Building.

In August, 50 classroom laptop comput-ers in Zachry were equipped with hardwareand software for computer-based dataacquisition and circuit measurement in the

classroom, according to John Tyler,electrical engineering senior lecturer andcoordinator of ENGR 215, Principles ofEngineering. The gift is valued by NationalInstruments at $92,725.

This gift will support the teaching ofintroductory circuit measurement, analysisand design. Nearly every student in thecollege will take one of those courses andwill benefit from the National Instrumentsequipment, Tyler said.

He added that the technology willsignificantly enhance classroom capabilitieallowing instructors demonstrate actualcircuit operation during lectures.

In the Bright building, two computerengineering labs with 10 workstations eachreceived hardware and software valued by

National Instruments at $145,800.

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1

Currentsis published by theDepartment of Electrical Engineering

Texas A&M University

College Station, Texas

77843-3128

Phone (979) 845-7441

Fax (979) 845-6259

Web http://ee.tamu.edu

Email currents@ee.tamu.edu

Writer, Editor and Photographer

Deana Totzke

Several faculty members in the Depart-ment of Electrical Engineering were ac-knowledged for their accomplishments atTexas A&M University during the DwightLook College of Engineering Fall Meeting.

Among those recognized were Drs. JoHowze, Mladen Kezunovic and ShankarBhattacharyya, professors; Steven Wrightand Hamid Toliyat, associate professors;and Karen Butler assistant professor.

Howze was one of only three engineer-ing faculty members who received aDistinguished Teaching Award at thecollege-wide meeting. He has been withTexas A&M since 1972 and has interests incontrol systems - theory and applications,dynamical systems modeling, linearsystems, engineering systems design,methodologies, hybrid vehicles, optimiza-tion, automotive control systems, linear

algebra and semiconductor processingcontrols. He received his bachelors,masters and doctoral degrees from RiceUniversity and is a member of severalengineering societies.

Kezunovic received the E.D. BrockettProfessorship. He joined the department in1987 as a visiting professor. His interestsinclude analysis and control, protectiverelaying, power system modeling, protectionsystem modeling and evaluation, applica-tions of digital signal processing, expertsystems, artificial neural networks, fuzzylogic, synchronized sampling and powerengineering education.

Kezunovic received his undergraduatedegree from the University of Sarajevo inBosnia and his masters and doctoraldegrees from the University of Kansas. Hishonors include (Texas Engineering ExperimentStation) TEES Fellow and Senior Fellow,earning a CIGR, U.S. Committee PaperRecognition Award and a Fulbright Scholar-ship. Kezunovic also has served on severalnational and international committees.

Bhattacharyya, Wright, Butler and Toliyatwere among those honored by TEES.

Bhattacharyya and Wright were namedTEES Fellows in honor of their research

achievements. Butler and Toliyatwere named TEES Select YoungFaculty, an honor designated for

young researchers in engineering.Bhattacharyya, who has been with

Texas A&M since 1980, has interestsin control systems and robust control.He is an IEEE Fellow, Fulbright

Lecturer, has won the prestigiousHalliburton Award and serves on theeditorial board of theBirkhauserSeries on Circuits, Signals andSystems. Bhattacharyya received his

bachelors and masters degrees fromIndian Institute of Technology inBombay and his doctoral degree fromRice University.

Wright is area leader in theBiomedical Imaging Group and has beenwith Texas A&M since 1988. His interestsare in electromagnetics, magnetic reso-nance imaging and antenna theory. He is amember of the International Society for

Magnetic Resonance in Medicine - a StudyGroup on MR Engineering and the IEEEEngineering in Medicine and BiologySociety. He is vice chair for the IEEEStudent Activities Committee.

He received his bachelors, masters anddoctoral degrees from the University ofIllinois.

Toliyat also began his career at TexasA&M in 1994 as a visiting professor. Hisresearch interests include power convert-ers for electric machines, novel electricmachines for different applications, DSPcontrol of variable speed drives, simula-tion techniques such as finite elements

analysis and Pspice and Saber, conditionmonitoring and fault diagnosis of electricmachinery, electric and hybrid electric

vehicles and active power filters forpower systems network.

Toliyat received his bachelors degreefrom Sharif University of Technology inIran, his masters degree from WestVirginia University and his doctoraldegree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Toliyat also has received theSelect Young Investigator Award fromTEES, the Space Act Award from the

NASA Inventions and ContributionsBoard, and the Best Transactions Paperfrom the Electric Machinery Committee ofthe IEEE Power Engineering Society. Heis listed inMarquis Whos Who inScience and Engineering. Hes also listedin the 2000 Outstanding Scientists of the20th Century.

Butler joined the electrical engineeringdepartment in 1994. She serves as assistantdirector of the Power Systems AutomationLaboratory and has won several awards. Shereceived her doctoral degree from HowardUniversity, her masters degree from theUniversity of Texas at Austin and her

bachelors degree from Southern University.

Dr. Franco Maloberti,professor in the Departmentof Electrical Engineering atTexas A&M University is theinaugeral holder of the TIJack Kilby Chair in AnalogEngineering.

The $1.5 million endowedchair was created in 1998 byTexas Instruments Inc. ofDallas as part of thecompanys $5.1 million gift tothe electrical engineeringdepartments analog design and engineeringinitiative.

Malobertis professional expertise is in thedesign, analysis and characterization ofintegrated circuits and analog digital applica-tions, mainly in the areas of switched capacitorcircuits, data converters, interfaces for telecom-munication and sensor systems, CAD foranalog and mixed A-D design.

Maloberti joined the faculty March 1, when hisappointment became effective. He brings to thedepartment a distinguished career. He received theLaurea Degree in physics (summa cum laude) fromthe University of Parma in Italy and the DoctorateHonoris Causa in electronics from the Instituto

Nacional de Astrofisica, Optica y Electronica(Inaoe), Puebla, Mexico.

Previously he worked for the University ofLAquila and the University of Pavia. During1975-79, he was technical coordinator of theengineering school at the University ofMogadishu, Somalia.

Maloberti has authored more than 230published papers and two books, holds 15patents and has won many awards for his

research contributions.In 1992 he received the XII Pedriali Prize forhis technical and scientific contributions tonational industrial production.

Other honors include the 1999 IEEE CASSociety Meritorious Service Award and the1999 CAS Society Golden Jubilee Medal.

Maloberti served on the European Commissionas the ESPRIT projects evaluator and reviewer. Hserved the Academy of Finland (1996) and the

National Science Foundation of Portugal (1999) inthe assessment of electronic research and was amember of the executive board of the ESPRITProject MEDCHIP.

EE Faculty Members Recognized at Meeting Maloberti Joins EE As TIJack Kilby Chair Holder

Maloberti

Howze

WrightToliyatKezunovic

ButlerBhattacharyya

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