The Last, Best Hope for the Stand-Alone Pocket Camera

Home , Randy Suess, Sysop, Ward Christensen

CHINA’S UNHACKABLE NEW LIFE FOR NOWHERE HOW THE WEB NETWORK MOORE’S LAW TO GO BUT UP GOT SOCIAL Spreading the reach Getting serious about An e-motorcycle It started with dial-up of quantum encryption EUV lithography takes on Pikes Peak bulletin boards P. 11 P. 28 P. 48 P. 54

FOR THE TECHNOLOGY INSIDER | 11.16 The Last, Best Hope How smart for the algorithms let this Stand-alone little gizmo Pocket compete with a high-end Camera Dslr P. 34

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11a.Cov2.NA [P].indd 2 10/11/16 10:09 AM FEATURES_11.16

48 28 34 42 54 The Molten A Pocket Can Solar Social Media’s Run Silent, Tin Solution Camera With Save the Dial-Up Roots Many Eyes Grid? Run Steep Chipmakers eye EUV Even before the lithography as a way Web, ordinary people The collection of cheap Smarter solar inverters The goal? Get to the top of a moun- to keep Moore’s Law were regularly on track. plastic lenses from Light can work in concert to socializing online. tain in Colorado faster than any other By Rachel Courtland creates high-quality stabilize the power grid. By Kevin Driscoll two-wheeled vehicle ever has. images. Here’s how. By Benjamin By Rajiv Laroia Kroposki By Philip E. Ross

O n the cover Photograph for IEEE Spectrum by Sue Tallon

photograph by Corey Davis/Randels Media Group SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | nov 2016 | 01

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102111 Online News Resources Opinion Spectrum.ieee.org China’s Great Quantum Link A DIY Lego Controller T he Invisible Technology Video: This Water-Jet Cutter The 2,000-kilometer Beijing– Use a Raspberry Pi as a Software is ubiquitous, which Slices Through Anything Shanghai project pushes the low-cost—and powerful— is why there will never be Startup Wazer introduced the first limits for “unhackable” links. upgrade for Lego creations. another software billionaire. desktop water-jet cutter with a By Rachel Courtland By Diomidis Spinellis By G. Pascal Zachary Kickstarter campaign, bringing this form of computer numerical 13 Agriculture Drones Are 23 S tartups: Cypher Wants 04 Back Story control cutting technology out of Finally Cleared for Takeoff Machines to Hear You Better 06 Contributors the factory and into DIY workshops. 14 F our Steps to Dust-Size 24 Geek Life: Atari’s Early Days 26 N umbers Don’t Lie: We Watch it saw a Rolex in half, cut a Neural Implants 25 Review: Solar Chargers in Humans Are the Undisputed steak into the shape of the United 16 Breaking the Multicore Bottleneck the Himalayas Superstars of Sweating States, and carve a dragon out of 18 The Big Picture: Sea Drone 76 P ast Forward: The Pen’s 27 Reflections: What’s Constant glass: http://spectrum.ieee.org/ Sails Without Sailors Atomic Age About Electrical Engineering? waterjetcutter1116

additional resources

Tech Insider / Webinars The Institute Available at spectrum.ieee.org/webinar Available at theinstitute.ieee.org

Analyzing HF & LF RadHaz Scenarios With 3D EM Simulation—3 November BRAIN INITIATIVE There’s been a surge of activity around the world to Creative Statistics—4 November develop tools and applications to help the brain function better. IEEE has Realizing New Potentials in Miniature Subsea Robotics—8 November formed its own initiative to advance brain research and neurotechnology EMC Simulation for Space Applications With CST STUDIO SUITE— development through workshops, standards, and partnerships with 10 November academia, government, and industry. Transformer Simulation—17 November An tenna Analysis and Design With Characteristic Mode Analysis— WESTON METERS Weston Electrical Instrument Co. introduced the first 22 November portable and direct-reading current and voltage meters in the late 1880s. This breakthrough was recently honored with an IEEE Milestone. Ma ster Bond Resource Library

pinellis; Wazer pinellis; http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/master-bond-resource-library S IEEE DAY Hundreds of groups around the world held events on 4 October is is d New Product Release Library to mark the annual celebration, which commemorates the founding of one of http://spectrum.ieee.org/static/new-product-release-library IEEE’s predecessor societies. lamy; Diomi lamy; A IEEE SPECTRUM (ISSN 0018-9235) is published monthly by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2016 by The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5997, U.S.A. Volume No. 53, issue No. 11, North American edition. The editorial content of IEEE Spectrum magazine does not represent official positions of the IEEE or its organizational units. Canadian Post International Publications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No. 40013087. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Circulation Department, IEEE Spectrum, Box 1051, Fort Erie, ON L2A 6C7. Cable address: ITRIPLEE. Fax: +1 212 419 7570. INTERNET: [email protected]. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS: IEEE Members: $21.40 included in dues. Libraries/institutions: $399. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to IEEE Spectrum, c/o Coding Department, IEEE Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Box 1331, Piscataway, NJ 08855. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canadian STG #125634188. Printed at 120 Donnelley Dr., Glasgow, KY 42141-1060, U.S.A. IEEE Spectrum circulation is audited by BPA Worldwide. IEEE Spectrum is a member of the Association of Business Information & Media Companies, the

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11.Contents.NA.indd 3 10/14/16 8:53 AM BACK STORY_

Editor in chief Susan Hassler, [email protected]

Executive Editor Glenn Zorpette, [email protected]

Editorial Director, Digital Harry Goldstein, [email protected]

Managing Editor Elizabeth A. Bretz, [email protected]

Senior Art Director Mark Montgomery, [email protected]

Senior Editors Stephen Cass (Resources), [email protected] Erico Guizzo (Digital), [email protected] Jean Kumagai, [email protected] Samuel K. Moore (News), [email protected] Tekla S. Perry, [email protected] Philip E. Ross, [email protected] David Schneider, [email protected]

Deputy Art Director Brandon Palacio, [email protected] Photography director Randi Klett, [email protected] Associate Art Director Erik Vrielink, [email protected] Photography Assistant Yuki Mizuma, [email protected]

Senior Associate Editors The Startup Around the Corner Rachel Courtland, [email protected] Eliza Strickland, [email protected] Associate Editors Celia Gorman (Multimedia), [email protected] enior Editor Tekla S. Perry has been drawn to the Willie D. Jones (News), [email protected] Silicon Valley startup Light like a moth to…well, a light. Her first Amy Nordrum, [email protected] vid eo producer Kristen Clark, [email protected] glimmer was a mention of Light in a 2014 report of venture in- Senior Copy Editor Joseph N. Levine, [email protected] C opy Editor Michele Kogon, [email protected] vesting; the company had closed a US $9.7 million funding round. Editorial Researcher Alan Gardner, [email protected]

The official word about what the company was doing was pretty Administrative Assistant vague: A “team of creative technologists [were] on a mission to Ramona L. Foster, [email protected] reimagine the art and science of photography.” intern Andrew Silver She started combing the Internet, and discovered that Light co- Contributing Editors S Evan Ackerman, Mark Anderson, John Blau, Robert N. founder Rajiv Laroia had in 2013 been identifying himself at conferences Charette, Peter Fairley, Tam Harbert, Mark Harris, David Kushner, Robert W. Lucky, Paul McFedries, Prachi Patel, as the founder of Tinz Optics. On a hunch, Perry walked the 10 minutes Richard Stevenson, Lawrence Ulrich, Paul Wallich

from her home in Palo Alto, Calif., to the building listed as Tinz headquar- D irector, Periodicals Production Services Peter Tuohy ters—next to her favorite Caribbean restaurant—and indeed, there was a Editorial & Web Production Manager Roy Carubia Senior Electronic Layout specialist Bonnie Nani paper sign on the door that read “Light.” (Later, next door, she bought a product manager, digital Shannan Brown Ting soda and wondered if the name had been the inspiration for “Tinz.”) Web Production Coordinator Jacqueline L. Parker Peeking in the windows told her nothing. So she combed the online Multimedia Production Specialist Michael Spector Editorial Advisory Board want ads, to see just what kind of engineers Tinz/Light was hiring. The Susan Hassler, Chair; David Brock, Jason Cong*, Sudhir Dixit, company had been seeking an “imaging scientist with a deep understand- Limor Fried, Robert Hebner, Joseph J. Helble, Grant Jacoby, Leah Jamieson, Deepa Kundur, Norberto Lerendegui, Steve Mann, ing of computational optics” who could develop “innovative computation Allison March, Jacob Østergaard, Umit Ozguner, Thrasos Pappas, algorithms to combine multiple recorded images into a single image….and John Rogers, Jonathan Rothberg, Umar Saif, Takao Someya, Yu Zheng, Kun Zhou, Edward Zyszkowski increase image dynamic range.” The job had been filled; someLink edIn * Chinese-language edition sleuthing suggested that the hire was a research scientist from camera- Editorial / Advertising Correspondence IEEE Spectrum maker Ricoh who had written papers about multi-aperture imaging. 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor Perry concluded that Light planned to use several small cameras to New York, NY 10016-5997 Editorial Department get better images—and she was right. This January, she held the proto- Te l: +1 212 419 7555 Fax: +1 212 419 7570 type herself [above] at a private showing at the CES technology show, in Bureau Palo Alto, Calif.; Tekla S. Perry +1 650 752 6661 Advertising Department +1 212 705 8939

Las Vegas. A few weeks earlier, Perry had finally met Laroia; in this is- Responsibility for the substance of articles rests upon sue, he reveals Light’s details in “A Pocket Camera With Many Eyes.” the authors, not IEEE, its organizational units, or its members. Articles do not represent official positions of IEEE. Reader That guess about Ting being the inspiration for Tinz? Way off base. The comments will be posted online, or published in print as space name comes from the first letters of the names of Laroia’s four children.■ allows, and may be excerpted for publication. The publisher reserves the right to reject any advertising.

Reprint Permission / Libraries Articles may be photocopied for private use of patrons. A per-copy fee must be paid to the Copyright Clearance Center, 29 Congress St., Salem, MA 01970. For other copying or republication, contact Business Manager, IEEE Spectrum.

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indicated at the bottom of each page. Both have the same edit orial content, but because of diff erences in advertising, page 11.16 numbers may differ. In citations, you should include the issue designation. For e xample, Past Forward is in IEEE Spectrum, Reflections, Spectral Lines, and Technically Speaking are

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04 | Nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

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CONTRIBUTORS_ |

N o v 2016

N ort h Ame rican “people’s Internet” begangearingup.“I was on the years, Laroia says, he’s purchased lots of expensive we need to make sure they work with existing University of SouthernCalifornia. But hisinterest in technology, ashedescribesin this issue[p. 34]. when hebecameacomputer bulletin-board user. technology for LTE, andbefore that heheldR&D that canhandle faults andhelpkeep the power grid the journalIEEESoftware. In this issueheshows technology at the Athens University of Economics Spinellis isaprofessor of management science and tail end,” hesays, with someregret. Hill Climb,inColorado, isoneof the toughest Photographing the Pikes Peak International Flarion Technologies, which developed the base Light, basedinPalo Alto, Calif. He previously founded Laroia ischief technology officer and cofounder of Energy Laboratory, inGolden,Colo. An IEEEFellow, Engineering Center at the National Renewable Kroposki isdirector of the Power Systems Driscoll teaches mediastudiesat the University Raspberry Pi–powered remote control running Lego Mindstorms robotics kits with amuchcheaper Driscoll was bornin1980,shortly before this ad hoc other inverter-based power generation isdeployed, of Virginia, inCharlottesville. His articleabout the open-source components,” says Spinellis. event’s official photographer. “Understanding the on the apex of acorner, where you’re justasking to realization inspired him to reengineer pocket-camera reliable,” Kroposki says. roles atLucent Technologies’ BellLabs.Over the he writes in this issueaboutsmarter solar inverters history of computer bulletin-board systems [p. 54] how easy it was to seamlessly combine these diverse how to replace the pricey Intelligent Brick usedin the behind anall-electricmotorcycle that raced against mountain itself and the pathsof the competitors is be hit,” says Randels, of Randels Media Group , the generation so that the gridremains stableand camera for family photos was hiscellphone. That camera equipment, buthe found that hisgo-to and Business, inGreece. He is the editor inchief of assignments inmotorsports. “You never want to be up andrunning[p. 42]. “As more wind, solar, and computer BBSsgoesall the way back to boyhood, child-friendly software [p. 21].“I was impressed by commercial rivals [see “Run Silent, Run Steep,” p.48]. critical.” He andhiscolleagues shot the student team is anoutgrowth of his2014doctoral thesis at the Ryan Randels Rajiv Laroia Benjamin Kroposki Kevin Driscoll Diomidis Spinellis |

SP E CTRU M .I EEE .ORG

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an or or or ct on f f f Infor n b Ope me me Publ Staff s i rt rt rt I orat ral al cat g e e e on d d NT e Fi m ess oard of ur e i E i i i t t t i i cal e e r & g & r t t at esi Res d d d isi isi isi i A i ark ng ng nanc m Di Di esi v es i i i v onal

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Gluekit r 10/13/16 10:58AM

11a.p7.NA [P].indd 7 10/7/16 1:02 PM — Let’s write the future with robots that have what it takes to collaborate.

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Anz_IEEE_PG2_413x273_CO_USA_e.indd 1 30.09.16 15:46 11a.p8.NA [P].indd 8 10/7/16 1:03 PM — Let’s write the future with robots that have what it takes to collaborate.

Anz_IEEE_PG2_413x273_CO_USA_e.indd 1 30.09.16 15:46 11a.p8.NA [P].indd 9 10/7/16 1:03 PM SPECTRAL LINES_ 11.16

to drivers but to enhance their new models. Without cool software, these vener- able automakers might not even survive (see Tesla’s and Google’s self-driving cars). View Uber in this same light. The company is best understood not as a taxi service on steroids but as a software-management system for personal transportation. The bottom line: No one gets rich making software anymore. The days of Bill Gates building a fortune on the strength of shrink-wrapped programs sold like dis- posable diapers is gone. Software today can make you rich only by enabling you to do something else that people pay for. Netflix, Facebook, and Google don’t get a dime from selling software, yet their revenue-producing services depend on The Invisible Technology continuously and seamlessly improving We used to go to stores to buy it. Now software their code. Similar examples are legion. is so ubiquitous, we don’t even notice it The new logic of software has different implications for those who make it, sell it, and use it. For makers, code ive years ago Marc Andreessen, the Web pioneer and celebrated no longer spawns tycoons and celebrities. The tech investor, predicted software would eat the world. last person to get famous from writing software He turned out to be right. Too right. Software is eating the was Linus Torvalds; and this year he celebrates world, and also eating itself. the 25th anniversary of his seminal achievement. The cannibalization of software defies easy explanation. Soft- Today’s top coders are largely if not wholly unknown ware is the motor of the world’s digital economy. Code is the by the wider public; at best, they are cult figures, ground of our computationally rich existence. Software applica- revered in underground communities. F tions and platforms are the source of vast wealth for Apple, Google, Another paradox: As software becomes ever more Facebook, Amazon, and many other tech titans. Yet even as software essential to creating the digital experience, the invis- grows in importance, code becomes less visible, less tangible, less under- ibility of software is a victory for the apostles of “the stood, and—perhaps most paradoxically—less valuable in monetary terms. free.” Hippies, misfits, and dropouts improbably cre- How has this great shift happened? Software originally coevolved with ated fabulous wealth through pricey apps in the last computers themselves. The IBM System/360, the business computer of two decades of the 20th century. Some among these choice in the 1960s, came bundled with code, and if customers needed characters, notably Richard Stallman, promoted a more or different programs, they asked IBM. In 1980, IBM chose to rely counter-ethos that conceived of software as a pub- on outsiders, notably Microsoft, for PC code, igniting a ferocious race lic good, available without charge to all. to sell programs as distinct products. That free software sits at the heart of an explosion Over the past 20 years, the program as artifact has vanished. Con- of profitable digital services is the latest, greatest sumers download new versions, patches, and feature improvements as riddle of global capitalism—and a sobering mes- easily as switching on their devices. They rarely pay for this. Software sage for the poets of programming. Code writers battles now occur over platforms, which define an experience such are essential and well paid but increasingly inter- as shopping (Amazon), searching (Google), or networking (LinkedIn). changeable and anonymous. Competitive advantage is now achieved through superior software, but For this, we should not pity the programmer, software supremacy is neither the aim nor the result of the new game. and we should remember: Hope springs from the “Software on wheels,” for instance, now defines the car of the future, unseen. —G. Pascal Zachary and is the reason why Google and Apple, the reigning kings of code, each

are pushing for a big role in next-gen autos. No surprise that Toyota, Ford, G. Pascal Zachary is a professor of practice at Arizona State and Daimler want their own software expertise, not to peddle programs University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society.

10 | Nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG Illustration by Greg Mably

11.SpectralLines.NA.indd 10 10/13/16 3:10 PM China’s 2,000-km Quantum Link is Almost Complete The Beijing–Shanghai project pushes the limits for “unhackable” links

By the end of this year, a scale terrestrial effort now has a partner quan tum space link: Staff work on China’s team led by researchers from in space: A quantum science satellite was quantum research satellite, which launched in August. It is part of a larger effort in the country to the University of Science and launched in August with a research mis- push the limits of quantum key distribution. Technology of China, in Hefei, sion that includes testing the distribution aims to put the finishing touches on a of keys well beyond the country’s borders. QKD has already made its way into 2,000-kilometer-long fiber-optic link that With these developments, China is the real world. In 2007, the scheme was will wind its way from Beijing in the north poised to vastly extend the reach of quan- used to secure the transmission of votes to the coastal city of Shanghai. tum key distribution (QKD), an approach in a Swiss election. Several years ago, What will distinguish this particular for creating shared cryptographic keys— the U.S.-based firm Battelle began to stretch of fiber from myriad other long- sequences of random bits—that can be use the approach to exchange informa- distance links is its intended application: used to encrypt and decrypt data. Thanks tion securely over kilometers of fiber the exchange of quantum keys for secure to the fundamental nature of quantum between its corporate headquarters in communication—a sophisticated gambit mechanics, QKD has the distinction of Columbus, Ohio, and a production facil- to protect data from present and future being, in principle, unhackable. A mali- ity in Dublin, Ohio.

lamy hackers. If all goes according to plan, this cious party that attempts to eavesdrop on But despite great progress, there has A Beijing–Shanghai line will connect quan- a quantum transmission won’t be able to been a stumbling block to wide distri-

Xinhua/ tum networks in four cities. And this large- do so without creating detectable errors. bution. “The problem we’ve got is

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 11

11.News.NA.indd 11 10/13/16 2:04 PM ter than traditional communications… [where] there is the possibility of perform- ing eavesdropping” at every point along Beijing the route, he says. Here, the problem is limited to 32 spots under lock and key. “A long-distance chain link like this, [it’s] really the first time it’s been done,” says Grégoire Ribordy of ID Quantique, based in Geneva, which makes hardware for QKD networks. “It’s inspiring Jinan other people to try to do similar things around the world.” If you want to avoid even the small vulnerability of trusted nodes, Spiller says, long-distance QKD must use quantum entanglement, a property that can link the states of photons separated by great physical distance and that can be exchanged between photons. “Quan- tum repeaters,” used in place of trusted nodes, could take advantage of this CHINA Hefei Area of Shanghai phenomenon to relay a quantum key enlargement without having to measure it. But this technology is still in an early stage of development, says Spiller; among other things, a quantum repeater will likely distance,” says Tim Spiller, director of river of secrets: A 2,000-kilometer-long require a form of quantum memory to the United Kingdom’s Quantum Com- backbone will connect quantum networks in help coordinate communication. four cities. The line uses a number of secured munications Hub, a nationally funded nodes as relays along the route. “[If you] don’t have to trust any of project that is building and connecting the nodes along the network, that will quantum networks in Bristol and Cam- munications equipment. The same rules broaden the applicability of QKD,” says bridge, in England. that protect quantum transmission against Michele Mosca, cofounder of the Insti- The challenge is that QKD encodes eavesdropping also prohibit a quantum tute for Quantum Computing at the Uni- information in the states of individual key from being copied without corrupt- versity of Waterloo, in Ontario, Canada. photons. And those photons can’t travel ing it. The solution has been to concate- One reason to improve QKD’s reach is indefinitely in fiber or through the air; nate, creating a daisy chain of individual to protect communications from tomor- the longer the distance, the greater the quantum links connected by physically row’s quantum computers, which could chance they will be absorbed or scattered. secured spots, or “trusted nodes.” Each make short work of the public-key cryp- This characteristic has a direct impact intermediate node measures the key and tography that underpins Internet secu- on how quickly a quantum key can be then transmits it with fresh photons to the rity and many other applications. generated, explains physicist Jian-Wei next node in the chain. But Mosca notes that QKD is not the Pan, who leads the Chinese projects. If The Beijing–Shanghai line will use only possible way to address this threat; researchers attempted to send signals 32 trusted nodes to create the 2,000-km many cryptographers are exploring new directly down 1,000 kilometers of fiber, line. This approach isn’t ideal for security. “postquantum” algorithms to replace Pan says, “even using all the best tech- Because each trusted node has to convert our existing public-key systems. QKD nology, we would only manage to send the quantum key back into classical (non- offers an “extra degree of assurance,” he 1 bit of secure key over 300 years.” quantum) information before passing it says, but improved conventional cryp- Instead, QKD fiber links must have a way on, an eavesdropper at the node could tography will be a cheaper and more to refresh the signal every 100 km or so potentially hack the data stream there practical solution for many applications. to maintain a reasonable bit rate. But this undetected. “That’s the drawback,” Pan Both will likely have a role to play in the can’t be done with conventional telecom- says. But the approach is “still much bet- coming years. —Rachel Courtland

12 | NOV 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG illustration by Erik Vrielink

11.News.NA.indd 12 10/13/16 2:04 PM Ab ove it all: SenseFly’s eBee SQ can fly over hundreds of hectares of farmland on a single charge. The drone’s multispectral camera scans in color and in four nonvisible wavelengths that are important to crop health.

cent of all commercial drone use in the United States. About half of the 5,500 exemptions that the U.S. Federal Avia- tion Administration (FAA) has approved up to now were for agricultural purposes, says Brian Wynne, president and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. With the new rules, the FAA expects more than 600,000 commercial UAVs to be flying during the next year. “These numbers foreshadow the exciting potential that UASs [unmanned aircraft systems] have for the agriculture industry now that the small UAS rule is in place,” Wynne says. A griculture By using drones to scout for weeds and pests, spot diseased plants or dry areas, and spray the right amount of fertilizer Drones Are and pesticide, farmers can increase yield with less resources and environmental harm. Returns are especially steep Finally Cleared for high-value crops like wine grapes. Drones are cheaper than hiring a small plane and, in contrast to satellites, work for Takeoff in cloudy conditions and give higher- resolution images. Prices for ready-to- N ew U.S. rules for commercial drones will fly agricultural UAV systems—hardware, benefit farmers and the drone industry sensors, and software included—range from US $1,500 to over $25,000. “This is going to have a big impact on Tech-savvy farmers have been some of the earliest farmers,” says Kyle Miller, an applica- commercial adopters of drone technology, purchasing tions engineer at agricultural drone 45,000 drones last year alone. But if they were using the maker AgEagle Aerial Systems, in drones to check on the condition of their fields, spraying Neodesha, Kan. Miller, who has been their crops, or keeping tabs on livestock, most of them were techni- flying robotic aircraft over his family’s cally breaking the law. New U.S. federal rules that went into effect this soybean farms as a hobbyist for years, summer, however, should make it easier for farmers to get a drone’s- says interest in the technology among eye view of their fields. farmers he knows is soaring. “Now that The new rules allow commercial drone operators to get certified the new rules are out, farmers know via a written test, so long as they fly drones that meet certain weight drones are coming to their area,” he says. and altitude guidelines. Before this, operators had to pay for a pilot’s Until now, many drone technology license and get a special exemption to use a drone, a slow and cum- providers sat on the sidelines, not want- bersome process. ing to go ahead with drone testing or use The rules are a win for farmers, drone companies, and everyday con- given the lack of a clear regulatory path, sumers. Worldwide, agriculture is the largest commercial market for says Nathan Stein, agricultural solu-

senseFly unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs. And it is expected to bag 80 per- tions manager at Swiss drone maker

news

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 13

11.News.NA.indd 13 10/13/16 2:04 PM senseFly. “Whether it was a an even bigger impact on seed company or chemical agriculture. Current rules 4 Steps to company, their legal depart- limit commercial drones to ments wouldn’t let them move less than 55 pounds (25 kilo- Du st-Size Neural forward,” he says. “Anything grams), a maximum speed of with the word drone in it was 100 miles per hour (160 kilo- ominous.” meters per hour), and an alti- Implants Several U.S. businesses tude of 400 feet (122 meters). have focused on operations in They also must not fly above Tiny ultrasound-powered motes could other countries. Drones have people and remain within the record and adjust nerve activity been used legally for agricul- operator’s visual line of sight. ture for more than 20 years That last rule is a killer for in countries such as Austra- agriculture and other eco- Mainstream medicine is making increasing lia, Japan, and South Korea, nomic uses. Farms in the use of electronics inside the body, deploy- according to Wynne. “Now United States—think midwest- ing implanted gadgets both to measure internal companies can bring business ern corn and soy expanses— conditions and to provide stimulating jolts of elec- and technology back into the are often much bigger than tricity to nerves and muscles. But turning a human United States,” Stein says. line-of-sight operation will into a proper cyborg will require many minuscule Plus, American farmers allow for. There are around devices that can be scattered throughout the body. might reap more benefits from 2.1 million farms in the coun- As a step toward that goal, a team of bioengineers drones than farmers in other try. Of those, the 1.85 million has built speck-size wireless electrodes that can be countries. “The United States or so smaller family farms affixed directly to nerves—and that may one day has incredibly diverse agricul- (averaging 93 hectares) that be nestled inside the brain. ture, from peaches to corn to make up about half the total The engineers from the University of California, grapes to cotton,” Stein says. U.S. farm acreage can benefit Berkeley, implanted one mote of what they call What’s more, he says, U.S. from drones right now. The “neural dust” inside an anesthetized rat, and dem- farmers have “an adventur- same isn’t true for larger farms, onstrated that the electrode could record signals ous spirit, so I expect a large which account for 36 percent from the rat’s sciatic nerve and wirelessly trans- market. People might come up of total U.S. farmland. mit the information. This experiment was a proof with more creative ways to use The FAA is moving in the of concept, says Jose Carmena, who co-led the drones on the farm.” right direction, but it needs research at UC Berkeley’s Center for Neural Engi- With pressure mounting to do more, says Darryl neering and Prostheses, where he is codirector. on the FAA from stakehold- Jenkins, chairman of the If the neural dust can be adapted for the human ers, UAVs are poised to have American Aviation Institute, body and brain, doctors could have an intimate an independent think new interface with the human nervous system. tank for commercial avi- But first, it had to work in a conked-out rat. ation based in Washing- To power the neural dust, a transducer out- 1.85 million ton, D.C. “Things move side the animal’s body emits ultrasound vibra- at a glacial speed at the tions that pass through skin and tissue. When the farms, or FAA,” Jenkins says. “To sound waves reach the implanted mote, its piezo- really get economic bene- electric crystal converts the vibrations’ mechan- about half the fits from drones, we need ical energy into electricity, providing power to total U.S. farm beyond-line-of-sight oper- a tiny transistor pressing against the nerve. As ations, flights over peo- natural electrical activity in the nerve varies, it acreage, can ple, and access to higher changes the current passing through the tran- altitudes.” sistor, thus providing a read-out mechanism for benefit from Perhaps then, like trac- the nerve’s signal. drones right tors and combines, drones To send the information back out of the body, the might become standard neural dust system also uses ultrasound. The exter- now farm equipment. nal transducer alternates between sending ultra- —Prachi Patel sound vibrations to power the mote and listening

14 | NOV 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.News.NA.indd 14 10/13/16 2:04 PM Y ou sound nervous: This tiny Challenge 3: Use the neural dust not only sensor, attached to a rat’s nerve, is powered by ultrasound. Nerve to record but also to stimulate nerves. signals change the way the device While recording signals from the reflects ultrasound, and an external nerves and muscles provides informa- sensor can hear the change. tion about the body, researchers in the Still, some experts say hot new field of “electroceuticals” are the alignment problem may more interested in stimulating nerves make the neural dust sys- with pulses of electricity to change the tem impractical in human body’s operations. Electroceutical com- patients. Complicated exter- panies are developing medical treatments nal components could can- that involve stimulating the vagus nerve cel out benefits gained by in the neck, for example, showing prog- the simple wireless implants, ress on reducing inflammation in rheu- says Dustin Tyler, a biomedi- matoid arthritis and blocking the pain of cal engineering professor at migraine headaches. Case Western Reserve Univer- But the current neural dust mote is sity, in Cleveland, who works a very low-power device, drawing only for the returning echo as some of those on cuff electrodes that wrap around 0.12 milliwatt. Chad Bouton, who heads vibrations bounce back. The changing nerves. “Daily donning and doffing of the Center for Bioelectronic Medicine at current through the transistor alters the arrays of [ultrasonic] transducers that the Feinstein Institute, in Manhasset, N.Y., piezo crystal’s mechanical impedance, need to be properly aligned can be quite says a stimulating mote will require more thereby modulating how much bounce daunting,” he says, “and often prevent power. “They have the right idea, but it’s back the transducer receives. patients from using the system or from going to take some work to develop that To make the system viable for humans, using it properly.” stimulating ability,” he says. Bouton’s lab Carmena and his colleagues are tack- has developed another nerve cuff with ling four distinct technical challenges: Challenge 2: Use multiple motes inside densely packed electrodes to provide pow- a single animal’s body. erful stimulating bursts, but that device Challenge 1: Make the neural dust sys- In the proof of concept, the research- currently requires penetrating wires. tem work in rats that are awake and ers not only recorded from a rat’s nerve, scurrying around. they also recorded electric signals from a Challenge 4: Make the motes small The use of ultrasound to power the muscle. By attaching motes to many mus- enough to be embedded in the brain. mote has the big advantage of making cles and nerves, the neural dust could be The name “neural dust” is a bit aspi- the system wireless, while other neural used as an internal sensor network, says rational: The researchers’ latest mote recording systems often use bulky bat- Maharbiz. “Deep-tissue temperature sen- is about 2.4 cubic millimeters, which is teries or ungainly wires that protrude sors would enable monitoring organ func- far bigger than your average dust par- through the skin. But going wireless has tion in a way not possible today,” he says. ticle. If they want to scatter their dust in a downside. The external transducer Powering and recording signals from the human brain, they’ll need to make must be aligned precisely with the multiple motes will require new tech- more-minuscule motes. implanted dust mote so the ultrasound niques and better signal processing. The The researchers say their prototype vibrations hit its piezoelectric crystal researchers may use an array of ultra- mote used a commercially available cir- dead-on. When an animal is unconscious, sound transducers that sweep their cuit board. They think they can get the it’s easy to keep that alignment, but it beams across an animal’s body, hitting size down to 1 mm3, about the size of the becomes a trickier problem when the all the motes in turn. The engineers piezoelectric crystal in the prototype, rat is awake and on the move. are also writing new signal processing by developing a customized board. And So study coleader Michel Maharbiz, algorithms to make sense of returning they’re already working toward a more in Berkeley’s electrical engineering echoes from multiple sources. Carmena ambitious goal: a mote that measures department, is now working on a rodent- is optimistic, noting that bats use the 50 cubic micrometers. At that size, motes wearable transducer. A tiny backpack similar process of echolocation to nav- could be tucked into the deep folds and holding the gear could be positioned igate in caves filled with thousands of wrinkles of the brain, letting us peer into eely N over the implanted mote to keep the animals. “If the bats can do it,” he says, the mysterious, dusty corners of the mind.

Ryan Ryan proper alignment, he says. “we should be able to do it too.” —Eliza Strickland

news

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 15

11.News.NA.indd 15 10/13/16 2:04 PM news

Breaking INTEGRATED the Multicore Engineering Bottleneck Software Simple hardware speeds From permanent magnets to sensors, core-to-core communication transformers, AC/DC motors, particle trajectory analysis and more, the electromagnetic industry Engineers at North To prevent the cores depends on INTEGRATED Engineering Software Carolina State Univer- from wantonly overwrit- to simulate their designs. sity and at Intel have come ing one another’s informa- up with a solution to one of tion, processing data out of BEST OF BREED SOFTWARE TOOLS, going beyond the modern microprocessor’s order, or committing other the traditional multiphysics approach: most persistent problems: errors, multicore proces- • Application programming interface (API) communication among the sors use lock-protected soft- • Boundary element method (BEM) Solver processor’s many cores. Their ware queues. These are data structures that coordinate Coils and Windings editor answer is a dedicated set of • logic circuits they call the the movement of and access ADDITIONAL BENEFITS: Queue Management Device, to information according to • Combination of different solvers or QMD. In simulations, inte- software-defined rules. But for multidisciplinary analysis grating the QMD with the pro- all that extra software comes cessor’s on-chip network at a with significant overhead, Easy direct import/export of • minimum doubled core-to- which only gets worse as the geometries from/to CAD tools core communication speed number of cores increases. • Automatic meshing and removal 30 DAY and, in some cases, boosted “Communications between of intersecting geometries FREE it much further. Even bet- cores is becoming a bottle- • Efficient multi-threading/ EVALUATION ter, as the number of cores neck,” says Yan Solihin, a parallelization for speed plus live was increased, the speedup professor of electrical and became more pronounced. computer engineering who World class support team ready demo • In the last decade, micro- led the work at NC State, in to unlock your ideas processor designers started Raleigh. putting multiple copies of pro- The solution—born of a dis- cessor cores on a single die as cussion with Intel engineers a way to continue the rate of and executed by Solihin’s LORENTZ is our electromagnetic simulation tool to performance improvement student, Yipeng Wang, at design many varieties of electromagnetic devices. It has NC State and at Intel—was number of advanced geometric modelling capabilities. computer makers had enjoyed Its ability to import any computational domain or without causing chip-killing to turn the software queue structure from CAD makes it extremely useful. hot spots to form on the CPU. into hardware. This effec- But that solution comes with tively turned three multistep – Mike Devine Applications Engineer Manager, complications. For one, it software-queue operations Dexter Magnetic Technologies means that software programs into three simple instruc- have to be written so that work tions: Add data to the queue, is divided among processor take data from the queue, cores. The result: Sometimes and put data close to where different cores need to work it’s going to be needed next. on the same data or must coor- Compared with just using the dinate the passing of data from software solution, the QMD one core to another. sped up a sample task such as 204.632.5636 INTEGRATEDSOFT.COM 16 | NOV 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.News.NA.indd 16 10/13/16 2:04 PM

IES_Spectrum 1/2 page ad_1016.indd 1 2016-09-29 3:02 PM be able to do a few other tricks—such as in a small piece of hardware for a sig- Breaking turning more software into hardware. nificant improvement.” They added more logic to the QMD and The Intel engineers involved couldn’t found it could speed up several other comment on whether QMD would find the Multicore core-communications-dependent func- its way into future processors. How- tions, including MapReduce, a technol- ever, they are actively researching its Bottleneck ogy Google pioneered for distributing potential. (Wang is now a research sci- work to different cores and collecting entist at Intel.) The engineers hope that Simple hardware speeds the results. QMD, among other extensions of the core-to-core communication Srini Devadas, an expert in cache concept, can simplify communication Itet ’s g t ing crowded: This Intel Haswell- control systems at MIT, says the QMD among the cores and the CPU’s input/ EX Xeon E7 V3 processor has 18 cores trying to work together without messing up one another’s addresses “a very important problem.” output system. calculations. A bit of additional hardware could Devadas’s own solution for the use of Solihin, meanwhile, is inventing speed up communication among the cores. caches by multiple cores—or even mul- other types of hardware accelerators. tiple processors—is more radical than “We have to improve performance by packet processing—like network nodes the QMD. Called Tardis, it’s a complete improving energy efficiency. The only do on the Internet—by a greater and rewrite of the cache management rules, way to do that is to move some software greater amount the more cores were and so it is a solution aimed at proces- to hardware. The challenge is to figure involved. For 16 cores, QMD worked 20 sors and systems of processors further in out which software is used frequently times as fast as the software could. the future. But QMD, Devadas says, has enough that we could justify implement- Once they achieved this result, the nearer-term potential. “It’s the kind of ing it in hardware,” he says. “There is ntel I engineers reasoned that the QMD might work that would motivate Intel—putting a sweet spot.” —Samuel K. Moore

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 17

11.News.NA.indd 17 10/13/16 2:04 PM 18 | Nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG photograph by Jason Henry/The New York Times/Redux

11.BigPicture.NA.indd 18 10/11/16 11:06 AM SAILORS NEED NOT APPLY

Self-driving cars might not be here quite yet, but self-driving— well, self-sailing—is already happening out on the water. Vessels like the Saildrone, pictured here traversing San Francisco Bay in August, are already proving they can do things (like monitoring the melting of the polar ice caps) that are difficult and costly to do on a traditional boat with a human crew. The wind-powered Saildrone is controlled via satellite by operators at the eponymous company’s Alameda, Calif., headquarters. The craft looks like a miniature America’s Cup racing yacht. But the Saildrone’s ability to haul up to 160 kilograms of equipment— which lets it capture a raft of information for better understanding the oceans and improving weather and climate prediction—limits its top speed to roughly 5 knots.

THE BIG PICTURE news

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | Nov 2016 | 19

11.BigPicture.NA.indd 19 10/11/16 11:06 AM ACCELERATE PRODUCTIVITY • INNOVATION • DISCOVERY

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©2016 National Instruments. All rights reserved. National Instruments, NI, and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. 27479

27479_NIDays_Ad_8x10.indd 1 10/5/16 10:06 AM 11a.p20.NA [P].indd 20 10/7/16 1:05 PM A DIY Lego Controller A low-cost way to program Lego machines

f you want to explore coding with Lego bricks, there’s one major option: resources_HANDS ON I to use a kit from the company’s well-known Mindstorms robotics line. Mindstorms- based machines are built around the Intelligent Brick, which can be programmed using Lego’s graphical programming environment or one of a number of third-party alternative languages. But Lego also makes a collection of motors, connectors, lights, and infrared receivers collectively sold under the label of Power Functions. In place of a programmable brick, the Power Function line includes a handheld controller for transmitting command signals. • I wondered if it was possible to use a Raspberry Pi to replace the handheld controller, taking on the role of an Intelligent Brick. This would have some advantages. With programs being created on the same device used to control Lego constructions, it would eliminate the need to download the programs to the brick, speeding up development. The US $40 Pi is also a lot cheaper than the $190 Intelligent Brick. I also wondered if

pinellis such a setup could be used with MIT’s Scratch, a free visual programming environment aimed at children. Scratch extensions are avail- S is is d able for use with the Mindstorms brick, but they require altering the brick’s firmware, and I wanted to try something simpler. • As I dis-

Diomi covered, most of the code required for controlling Lego toys using Scratch is already available as open source software. What was

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11.Resources.NA.indd 21 10/11/16 2:19 PM RESOURCES_HANDS ON

needed was integration, configuration, and mands from the Pi’s command line through some glue software. BLOCK BY BLOCK LIRC’s irsend program. First, I needed to build an infrared con- The final step was to issue the LIRC com- trol link, which is basically two infrared mands from the Scratch environment. I LEDs operated via the Raspberry Pi’s gen- enabled “remote sensor connections” in eral purpose input/output (GPIO) connec- Scratch. This makes Scratch behave like a tor and Lego’s receiver. I used schematics local server running on the TCP port 42001. and instructions by Alex Bain to build the Client software can connect to Scratch us- hardware. For the software, I downloaded ing this port and listen for messages from and installed LIRC, a package that has sup- Scratch programs. (It’s also possible to port for decoding and transmitting signals have the client software and Scratch envi- used by over 2,500 different infrared re- ronment run on separate machines, so you mote controls. could have the Raspberry Pi–based infra- Getting the LIRC package to work with red interface controlled by a Scratch pro- my home-brew infrared link was a simple gram running on a desktop computer, for matter of editing some configuration files example.) I then installed Phillip Quiza’s ex- and specifying which GPIO pins I had wired cellent scratchpy library, which allows you up for input and output. to write Scratch clients in the Python pro- Now I needed to get LIRC to send valid gramming language. Lego command signals. This means speci- Finally, I wrote a Python script that re- fying the waveform—a pattern of infrared ceives Scratch broadcast messages speci pulses—that must be sent for each Lego fying Lego remote commands, and runs command. Fortunately, Lego has released a the LIRC command-line client to send document specifying the protocol and for- them (this is also available from my lego- mat of all commands (for example, a binary power-scratch GitHub repository). To run value of 1 is transmitted by six pulses of IR the script, run the control.py program in a light at a frequency of 38 kilohertz, followed separate terminal window and launch the by a pause of 553 microseconds). The Lego Scratch environment. While control.py is Power Functions system supports up to running, it will display on its standard out- four receivers working on different chan- put the remote control messages it sends nels, and each receiver has a red side and a or the errors it detects on the incoming blue side, each of which can independently Scratch messages. control a motor. In Scratch, programs are constructed Building on this information, Conor Cary by chaining together graphical blocks on created lego-lirc, a Java program that gen- screen. Blocks perform functions such as erates command waveforms, complete program-flow control and graphics ma- with the correct checksums, in a format that nipulation. To send a message to a Lego LIRC understands. I downloaded lego-lirc Power Functions receiver, a “broadcast” and, with the Lego documentation in hand, block is used, with a simple text string of created additional waveforms that allow the form “Lego the transmission of PWM (pulse-width .” So, for example, the mes- modulation) commands. These commands sage “Lego 2 blue -7” will send a signal by allow precise speed adjustment of Power way of the Python client and my transmit- Function motors without requiring timing ter to turn the motor connected to the blue loops in the application software. (To avoid side of the receiver on channel 2 at full the hassle of running lego-lirc, you can just speed, backward.

download my file of generated LIRC wave- L ego Power Functions allow motors How does the system work in practice forms directly from my GitHub repository to be controlled with infrared signals with its intended audience? I tried it out with under the username of dspinellis.) To con- [top]. Signals can be generated by a young budding engineer—who quickly connecting infrared LEDs to a Pi

figure LIRC to use the Lego commands, I wrote a Scratch program to control Lego’s (4) pinellis [middle images]. A Lego enclosure S is is

copied the waveform to the LIRC configura- holds the components [bottom]. Volvo Wheel Loader kit with a computer’s d

tion directory. I could then send Lego com- arrow keys. —Diomidis Spinellis Diomi

22 | NOV 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.Resources.NA.indd 22 10/11/16 2:19 PM RESOURCES_Startups

Profile: Cypher Cypher had hoped that the promise of exceptional voice quality would be enough to This startup pivoted from persuade smartphone manufacturers to in- cleaning up calls to stall the program. It argued that the technology could set devices apart for consumers in helping machines hear a crowded market. “As phones become com- moditized, who’s to say Huawei couldn’t use this as a differentiator?” says Yoon. But customers care much more about camera quality and battery life than the clarity of calls. So Cypher tried another approach: convincing manufacturers to replace the dedicated hardware currently used for active noise cancellation with its algorithms, which can be incorporated into the phone’s operating system. Cypher estimates that doing so could take 50 U.S. cents to $1 off the cost of making each smartphone. However, that argument also failed to gain much traction. Though Cypher has completed trials with Samsung, LG, and Huawei, it hasn’t inked a single licensing deal since its program launched last fall. Ronan de Renesse, a consumer technology analyst at Ovum, says top-of-the-line smartphone models cost $200 to $400 to manufacture, hen John Walker founded gorithms can easily trace. For example, “all so saving 50 cents per phone isn’t enough to W Cypher four years ago, he had a human speech incorporates vowels,” Yoon pique manufacturers’ interest. simple premise: No one wants to explains. “If you look at them on a spectral Now, Cypher is again rethinking its waste time on a noisy phone call. So he built graph, because of the construction of your strategy, to focus on helping the growing software for smartphones, incorporating a nasal cavity, tongue, and teeth, you get these number of voice-activated digital assistants deep neural network, which could apply ma- really nice harmonic analyses. A jackhammer (such as Ok Google, Siri, and Cortana) to hear chine learning to deliver crystal-clear conver- does not have the same type of harmonics.” commands in noisy households. R ecently, sations devoid of background noise. Once the program has picked out a voice, the team applied their software to Alexa, the To show it off, John Yoon, Cypher’s head of its algorithms strip away everything else. This digital assistant inside Amazon Echo, the strategy, recently stood at the busy intersection technique departs from many other software- company’s at-home taskmaster. In a test outside IEEE Spectrum’s office building in New based approaches, which have often focused run by Cypher, the program improved Alexa’s York City. Yoon called CEO Walker, who was on first identifying noise and then subtract- word recognition (as measured by its error waiting in our office. They spoke on speaker ing it from speech. However, because noise rate) by 116 percent as it analyzed hundreds phone for a few minutes as car horns honked is much more varied than speech, it’s difficult of queries such as, “Alexa, what’s the weather and sirens blared. to correctly classify all unwanted sounds. like in Reno?” Once Yoon switched Cypher’s demo pro- Deep neural networks have become The company says this improvement gram on, the call became as quiet and clear very fashionable due to their ability to ex- makes the difference in whether Alexa, if as if he had dialed from a conference room. tract useful information from messy data. placed in a noisy kitchen, understands a The company says it can cut out 99 percent Sy Choudhury, senior director of product command or not. But it remains to be seen of background noise at the cost of introduc- management at Qualcomm, says a wave of whether customers think that background ing a delay of just 24 milliseconds (far below startups and manufacturers are working to noise is a true hindrance for digital assistants ges a m I the 200 ms that would be noticeable to a hu- integrate these networks into smartphones and if manufacturers will pay Cypher to re- etty etty

G man listener). for a variety of purposes. In Cypher’s case, duce it. —Amy Nordrum To achieve clarity in conversations, Cypher’s the greatest challenge, however, has not tromme/

S program is primed to recognize a voice based been in developing a successful program Location: Salt Lake City Founded: 2012 n n a J on characteristics of human speech that al- but in figuring out how to sell it. Employees: 11 Funding: US $10 million

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 23

11.Resources.NA.indd 23 10/11/16 2:19 PM RESOURCES_Geek Life

tors in every city. One would have Gottlieb Tales of Atari pinballs, one Williams. We had chosen the New stories of a legendary best distributors, but the [distributors] who didn’t have the Atari brand were doing every- company come to light thing they could to spawn a competitor. So I thought, let’s make that happen.” So in 1973 Atari secretly started a second company, Kee Games, with Bushnell’s next-door neighbor, Joe Keenan, at the helm. “We took our No. 2 engineer, our No. 1 manu facturing guy, and every other game in our lineup, and gave it to Kee.... We told the distributors, ‘Those bastards are stealing our games!’ and then the distributors would run off and grab the games.” Moving on to how Atari operated internally, “Nolan [Bushnell] and I had a vibrant, contentious relationship,” said Alcorn. “Nolan is this dreamer doing all this crazy stuff, and I’m the one who gets the short end of the stick and has to make it happen.” “Nolan would come into engineering,” Alcorn continued, “where we had three teams who had been working on things for months. And he would say, ‘This game is s—t; let’s do this instead.’ That got to be a problem, so I gave our secretary a pager only to be used thought I’d heard them all. SILIA CON V LLEY LEGENDS: [From left] Former to page me in the event Nolan got into engi- Atari stories, that is. I started cov- Atari engineer Owen Rubin, head of engineering neering. I would go in and stand behind him, I Al Alcorn, and cofounder Nolan Bushnell. ering the company in 1981, fol- and as soon as he left I would remind engi- lowed cofounder Nolan Bushnell and first neers who they worked for.” engineer Al Alcorn through their later ad- minicomputer. Recalled Atari’s head of engi- The first major customer for the home ver- ventures, and became personal friends with neering, Alcorn: “You were doing this [on the sion of Atari’s seminal Pong was Sears. Says more than a few Atari alumni. side] in the evening, borrowing parts.” Bushnell, “We were in a conference room But in September the IEEE Silicon Valley “Liberating parts,” corrected Bushnell. with Tom Quinn [the Sears executive], and he History Committee hosted a sold-out “A fine tradition,” said Alcorn, “that Atari ad- says, ‘How many can you build?’ We had no 100-person event, in Santa Clara, Calif. opted. That’s how the Apple II was made, with clue. A big run for us at the time was 10,000 With key Atari players on hand, behind-the- Atari’s parts.” units. So I went out and asked our manufac- scenes stories came out that were new Steven Mayer, who was Atari’s chief ar- turing guy. He said 25,000. Then I went back to me—and even to some of the players. It’s chitect for home games and computer sys- to Quinn and told him 75,000. He gave us an hard to get startups off the ground, partic- tems, chimed in: “There was a long tradition order for 150,000.” ularly those trying to do something as rev- at Ampex of supporting people [to go out The Atari alumni also mentioned the im- olutionary as start a new industry. So let’s and do other things]. A guy working on a portance of location for their entrepreneurial just say the truth, at times, was stretched database at Ampex was Larry Ellison. A guy success: “One of the nice things about Silicon back then—or simply ignored—in order to working in audio was Ray Dolby. Ampex was Valley is you all have worked next to an idiot make things happen. A few examples: incredibly generous about letting these peo- who has gone off and been successful,” said Bushnell began moonlighting on coin- ple start their own companies.” Bushnell. “So you think if he did it, I can do it too. operated video games while working at Computer Space was a failure, but Atari’s “And, of course, Steve Jobs was working for Ampex, a Silicon Valley electronics com- second game, Pong, turned the company me, so it goes along.” —Tekla S. Perry

pany. He and some colleagues developed into a huge success in 1972. “I wanted world erry P . S

C omputer Space in 1971, an arcade version of domination,” said Bushnell. “And it turns out An extended version of this story is avail- a ekl

Spacewar, a game written for the DEC PDP‑1 that there are two coin-op [game] distribu- able online. T

24 | NOV 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.Resources.NA.indd 24 10/11/16 2:19 PM RESOURCES_Review

of course; you wouldn’t use it to run a refriger- Solar Charging ator). But it adds bulk—159 grams—and you Kit Showdown, lose some energy in converting DC to AC. Rather than an inverter, Voltaic’s system Himalayas Edition relies on an impressive array of DC adapt- Voltaic Systems’ Arc 20W ers and USB chargers. I got USB battery chargers for our Sony and Canon cameras Outshines Goal Zero’s ($7.50 to $10 each) and a Magsafe 2 adapter Sherpa 100 ($20) for our Apple MacBook Pros. The solar panels are light and flexible enough to be draped from backpacks, so in theory I could have charged as I hiked. I didn’t actually do that. Instead, once we reached our destination, I located a flat, un- shaded spot. When the morning sun emerged, I laid out the panels, angled them toward the light, and connected the batteries. Goal Zero’s instructions caution against letting the battery get too hot, but I didn’t find that to be a problem. What was an issue was the ever-present dust, which had me wiping off the panels several times a day. My photographer and I ’m not an outdoorsy person. FolDABLE SOLAR POWER: Goal Zero [left] and never wanted for power. Every night she But when a reporting assignment Voltaic Systems [right] offer portable solar panels downloaded photos and video from her cam- I that can fit into a backpack and charge battery came up recently that required packs with enough capacity for smartphones, eras and her iPhone to her laptop, backed trekking in the Himalayas, there was really digital cameras, and laptops. them up to an external drive, and recharged only one response: Yes! the occasional camera battery. I used my The assignment would take me to a village computer and camera more sparingly, but I that had no grid power and was a day’s hike obliged several requests from others to re- from the nearest road. My photographer and charge phones, cameras, and a GoPro. I would be carrying two laptops, three digi- 21 by 2.5 centimeters. The battery has two The panels got about 10 hours of sun daily. tal cameras, and a smartphone between us. USB ports, a laptop port, and a 12-volt port. The Goal Zero battery is supposed to take So finding a reliable and portable source of I never found a use for the latter, but it’s des- 10 to 20 hours to fully charge, but even when power was essential. ignated for lighting. Also included are an AC the battery started from a partial charge, it We were heading to the Ladakh region, a wall-outlet adapter and car-lighter adapter. never reached 100 percent. Several times high-altitude desert blessed with a spectac- The entire kit weighs 2 kilograms. scattered clouds caused the unit to stop ular amount of solar radiation. Looking around Voltaic Systems is an up-and-coming charging. Those same clouds did not pose a for lightweight solar panels and batteries, I player. Its $278 kit comes with a 2,200-mAh problem for the Voltaic system. Voltaic’s bat- found plenty of options. I ended up trying out lithium-polymer battery, a 20-W solar panel tery, which the company says takes 7 to 10 two units, loaned to us by the manufacturers: that folds to 19 by 25.5 by 2 cm, plus an AC hours to charge in full sun, did indeed fully ystems S Goal Zero’s Sherpa 100 Solar Kit and Voltaic adapter and lighter adapter. The battery has charge every day. ic ic a So which system did I prefer? Both seem

olt Systems’ Arc 20W Solar Charger Kit. one 5-V USB port and a DC port for laptop V Goal Zero is a well-established company, charging. The kit weighs 1.5 kg. well made and engineered, but the Voltaic ight ight R and its US $550 Sherpa 100 kit comes with One key difference between the kits is the in- system had the edge in solar charging. And

l Zero; Zero; l an 8,800-milliampere-hour lithium-ion bat- verter—Goal Zero’s has one, Voltaic’s does not. factoring in the significant difference in price a o G tery, a detachable 110-volt AC inverter, and a The inverter screws into the battery and lets you and weight, I’ll opt for Voltaic for my next off- eft: eft: L 20-watt solar panel that folds down to 33 by pretend you have a wall outlet (within reason, grid adventure. —Jean Kumagai

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 25

11.Resources.NA.indd 25 10/11/16 2:19 PM NUMBERS DON’T LIE_by VACLAV SMIL OPINION

We are the superstars of sweating, and we need to be. An amateur running the marathon at a slow pace will burn 700 to 800 W, and an experienced marathoner who covers the 42.2 kilometers in 2.5 hours will burn about 1,300 W. And we have another advantage when we lose water: We don’t have to make up the deficit instantly. Humans can tolerate considerable temporary dehy- dration providing that they make up the deficit within a day or so. In fact, the best marathon runners drink only about 200 milli liters per hour during the race. Together these advantages allowed our ancestors to become the unrivaled diurnal, high- temperature predator. They could not outsprint an antelope, of course, but Running, Sweating, and during a hot day they could dog its heels until it finally collapsed, exhausted. Persistence Hunting Documented cases of such long- distance chases come from three continents and include some of the fleetest quadrupeds. In North America, the During the two years of its monthly appearance, Tarahumara of northwestern Mexico this column has looked at many objects—cars, turbines, air- could outrun deer. Further north, planes, windows, mobile phones, and nuclear reactors—made by Paiutes and Navajos could exhaust humans. Today’s focus is on the human body, specifically the way pronghorn antelopes. In South Africa, it keeps itself cool. • Before the development of long-range projectile weap- Kalahari Basarwa ran down a variety onry some tens of thousands of years ago, in Africa, our ancestors had only two of antelopes (mostly duikers, gemsbok, ways to secure meat: by scavenging the leftovers of mightier beasts or by run- and kudus but also larger eland) and dur- ning down their own prey. Humans were able to occupy the second of those eco- ing the dry season even w ildebeests and logical niches thanks, in part, to two great advantages of bipedalism. • The first zebras. In A ustralia, some A borigines advantage is in how we breathe. A quadruped can take only a single breath per would outrun kangaroos. locomotive cycle because its thorax must absorb the impact on the front limbs. These runners even had an advantage We, however, can choose other ratios, and that lets us use energy more flexibly. over modern runners using expensive The second, and greater, advantage is in our extraordinary ability to regulate athletic shoes: Their barefoot running our body temperature, which allows us to do what lions cannot: to run long and not only reduced their energy costs by hard in the n oonday sun. • It all comes down to sweating. The two large ani- about 4 percent (a nontrivial advan- mals we have mainly used for transport perspire profusely, compared to other tage on long runs) but it also exposed quadrupeds: In one hour a horse can lose about 100 grams of water per square them to fewer acute ankle and lower- meter of skin, and a camel can lose up to 250 g/m2. However, a human being can leg injuries. easily shed 500 g/m2, enough to remove 550 to 600 watts’ worth of heat. Peak In the race of life, we humans are nei- hourly sweating rates can surpass 2 kilograms per square meter, and the highest ther the fastest nor the most efficient. But

reported short-term sweating rate is twice that high. we are certainly the most persistent. ■

26 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG illustration by Chad Hagen

11.Numbers.NA.indd 26 10/11/16 8:43 AM REfleectionsctions_BY_BY RROBERTOBERT W. LUUCKYCKY OOPINIONPINION

mutate their domains while maintaining their descriptive legacy names. In addition, many societies have generic names denoting a function, rather than an underlying technology, such as the IEEE Communications Society. Wikipedia defines electrical engineering as “a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics, and electro- magnetism.” But it seems to me that we have moved well beyond that classical role. Many of the problems today are at the layers above the physical level, involving software, systems, algorithms, design, and cognition, and are usually cross-disciplinary. For example, the most hyped technologies today include machine learning, big data, security, autonomous vehicles, robots, and the blockchain. While electronics is the The Ever-Evolving enabler in all of these, it is not where the important problems are. None- Field of Electrical theless, we electrical engineers have already occupied this higher ground, as our training, aptitudes, and inclinations Engineering seem well suited for this work. Practicing engineers will go wherever there is interesting work. My concern is I was at a large hardware store, holding a power cord that more with the evolution of the educational I thought would fit my new home generator, when another shopper and professional institutions that sup- pointed to the cord in my hand and said that I had chosen the wrong port engineers, and with the perception connector. When I looked hesitant, he added, “I’m an electrical engi- of electrical engineering held by poten- neer, so I know things like that.” • Needless to say, I quietly changed my choice. tial students. The IEEE has already had at But I started thinking: What are those things that all EEs know? What is the com- least two episodes of soul-searching over monality of training and experience that holds us together as a profession, and the scope of its domain—in 1963 when it how is it changing? What will it mean to be an EE in the future? • I looked at the incorporated “electronics” into its name, EE curricula in a number of universities. In the first two years of study, there is a lot and some years later when it wrestled with of uniformity, with courses in basic math, physics, and computing. The EE-specific the role that computer science would play. part begins with circuit analysis and design. After those first two years of school, As circuit design and other classic elec- however, EE students branch out in perhaps a half dozen different directions. A trical engineering tasks are increasingly student who studies the physics of electron devices might have little in common performed by computers and electrical with one who studies information theory. But each would be an EE, and almost the engineers move to ever higher and more only specialized knowledge that they would hold in common other than basic sci- functional design, what will be the com- ence and math would be the principles of circuit design. So I decided: You are an monality that holds us together in the EE if you know—or once knew—circuit design. • After college, EEs enter so many future? And how will electrical engi- different specialties and occupations that they are almost impossible to categorize. neering be distinguished from other Nonetheless, I looked at the IEEE organization as a framework for professional branches of engineering? practice. There are currently 39 societies within the IEEE that serve to guide pub- When I first entered electrical engi- lications and conferences. As engineering practice changes, so must the societies, neering in college, I had very little idea yet over the last 20 years only a few societies have been added and one has disap- of what EEs actually do. After all these

peared, which indicates only moderate evolution. However, even the oldest societies years, I’m still not sure. ■

illustration by Dan Page SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | Nov 2016 | 27

11.Reflections.INT - 11.Reflections.NA [P]{NA}.indd 27 10/11/16 12:17 PM The Molten Tin Solution

PUTTING EUV TO THE TEST: This EUV scanner (an ASML NXE:3300B) is used to print chip features at a SUNY Polytechnic Institute facility in Albany, N.Y. The EUV light needed to expose wafers is created near the bottom of the scanner, on the side visible in the foreground of this photograph. The far end of the machine is attached to a “track” that coats the wafers before exposure and processes them once they are done.

28 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.LithographyFuture2.INT - 11.LithographyFuture.NA [P]{NA}.indd 28 10/13/16 4:47 PM After a 30-year journey, EUV chip-printing technology is now poised to help keep By Rachel Courtland Moore’s Law on track

INSIDE THE MACHINE: To generate EUV, pulses of CO2 laser light are sent into a vessel [top and middle] where they collide with tiny tin droplets to create plasma. This partially assembled EUV scanner [bottom] at ASML’s headquarters in Veldhoven, Netherlands, is one of the company’s more recent models.

Left: IBM Research; Right: ASML (3) SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | nov 2016 | 29

11.LithographyFuture2.INT - 11.LithographyFuture.NA [P]{NA}.indd 29 10/13/16 4:47 PM The Molten Tin Solution

E ven after you don a bunny suit and get deep inside Fab 8, it’s hard to get a sense of scale. Rows upon rows of tall machines, known as tools, dominate this US $12 billion GlobalF oundries facility, built amid forest north of Albany, N.Y. Carriers containing silicon wafers zip overhead along ceiling-mounted tracks, like tiny inverted roller Now, though, the technology really does seem coasters. If your timing is good, you’ll be standing by a tool when one of to be turning a corner. The brightness of the EUV those carriers descends to join it, moving a wafer along to the next step in light source made by Dutch lithography-tool manu the three-month-long process it takes to turn a dinner-plate-size disk of raw facturer ASML Holding seems to be closing in on silicon into chips that could be used inside smartphones, personal com- a figure long targeted for commercial production. puters, and servers. That’s right: Begin making a microprocessor here on ASML, which has emerged as the technology’s New Year’s Day and it may just be finished by the start of spring. standard-bearer, is now shipping EUV scanners More than 60 times in the course of this advanced manufacturing that it says should be ready to mass manufacture process, a wafer will be coated with a light-sensitive substance and leading-edge microprocessors and memory start- enter a light-tight box called a scanner. There, in a process called photo‑ ing in 2018. The world’s most advanced chipmakers lithography, laser light shines through a patterned surface and casts are working hard to determine when and how shrunken versions of that pattern onto the wafer, creating the ultrafine these machines will be incorporated into their features that are needed to build the minute transistors and wiring inside production lines. cutting-edge processors. The stakes are high. Moore’s Law is facing sig- There is little to distinguish these lithography machines from the myriad nificant challenges, and no one is sure how the other tools in this vast ocean of automation. There is no big red sign that semiconductor industry—which grossed more than flashes “Critically important step here!” But lithography, explains Fab 8 $330 billion last year—will navigate the next five or general manager Tom Caulfield, “is the heartbeat of the fab.” 10 years or what a post-Moore’s-Law semiconduc- Think of these scanners as the front line of Moore’s Law, the repeated tor industry will look like. A decline in revenues doubling of the density of integrated circuit components that has defined might be inevitable. But if keeping the “law” in more than 50 years of astounding technological progress. For decades, effect avoids, say, a 15 percent drop in the indus- a steady series of remarkable breakthroughs, many of them in photo‑ try’s income, that would keep an amount of money lithography, have enabled chipmakers to repeatedly shrink chip features, flowing that is twice as great as the total revenues keep the length of R&D cycles under control, and economically pack of the U.S. video game industry. more and more transistors on a chip. Those advances have taken us from chips with thousands of transistors in the early 1970s to billions today. The fineness of the details that can be made But to keep the good times rolling, GlobalFoundries and other leading- with a photolithographic system depends on sev- edge chipmakers won’t be able to rely on the brilliant lithographic advances eral factors. But a powerful way to make dramatic of the past. And so they’re contemplating another radical shift, one that improvements is to shorten the wavelength of could prove to be the most challenging yet. the light it uses. For decades, lithographers have For the entirety of its existence, semiconductor lithography has been done just that, shifting their wafer-exposing tools done with electromagnetic radiation that was more or less recognizable from operation at the blue edge of what’s visible as light. But for the change chipmakers are now weighing, the radiation to the human eye down to successively shorter is something else altogether. It’s called extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radia- wavelengths in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. tion, but don’t let that name fool you. Unlike the ultraviolet light used in In the late 1980s, the semiconductor industry today’s scanners, EUV can’t travel in air, and it can’t be focused by lenses was beginning the process of shifting from mercury or conventional mirrors. lamps to lasers as the light source of choice, reduc- And it’s also difficult to produce; the process begins by firing laser light ing the wavelength from 365 nm to 248 nm in the at a rapid-fire stream of tiny molten tin droplets. The hope is that scan- process. But some researchers were already con- ners built to use the resulting 13.5-nanometer light—a wavelength that is templating a far bigger jump, into the X-ray range. less than a tenth of what is used in today’s most state-of-the-art machines— Hiroo Kinoshita, then at the Japanese telecommu- will save chipmakers money by allowing them to print in a single step nications firm NTT, reported the results of early layers that would otherwise require multiple exposures. work on this idea way back in 1986, using 11-nm But creating EUV systems that are bright and reliable enough to oper- radiation. Others, at AT&T Bell Laboratories and ate in the fab—nearly 24 hours a day, 365 days a year—has proved to be a at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, also monumental engineering challenge. For many years, EUV faced signifi- explored the technology independently. In 1989, cant skepticism and repeatedly failed to live up to predictions that it was some of these researchers met and traded notes at a almost ready for prime time. lithography conference. In ensuing years, research

30 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.LithographyFuture2.INT - 11.LithographyFuture.NA [P]{NA}.indd 30 10/13/16 4:47 PM Inside the To make patterns with EUV, engineers had to leave lenses behind. A series of mirrors brings EUV radiation from the scanner’s light source [bottom right] to a mask, which carries the patterns to be Scanner printed, and then on to the wafer. An attached “track” [left side, not shown] brings wafers in and out of the scanner. The masks have a separate entrance.

Handler for moving and storing masks Active mask is exposed to EUV light First scanner mirror

Mask entrance and exit

Track system attached to EUV scanner coats wafers before exposure and handles wafers after exposure

Wafer handler moves wafers in and out of system Wafer is measured Wafer is exposed EUV light source

into the notion got infusions of investment from Nothing about it was easy. Physics offers few favors for engineers government and industry. hoping to cast patterns with what are essentially X-rays. At 13.5 nm, the ASML and several partners began work on what wavelength the company ultimately chose, light is readily absorbed by was by then known as EUV lithography in the late many materials. Even the air we breathe “is absolutely black,” absorb- 1990s. That was when Anton van Dijsseldonk, who ing every last bit of the radiation, van Dijsseldonk notes. So he and his grew up in Veldhoven, the Dutch town where colleagues realized early on that the only way an EUV scanner could ASML is headquartered, became the company’s work was in vacuum, with each wafer entering and leaving the scanner first full-time employee on the project. “The end through an air lock. of Moore’s Law was predicted,” he recalls, and And then there’s the problem of bending the radiation. EUV is also the semiconductor industry was hunting for ways absorbed by glass, so directing it through the machine would require a to keep resolution improvements going. Chip- shift from lenses to mirrors. And not just any mirrors. A simple polished makers were also struggling to improve o verlay— surface would not be nearly reflective enough, so they’d have to use the ability to put a wafer back in the scanner again Bragg reflectors—multilayer mirrors that can constructivelyr einforce after its peregrinations through the fab and have many small reflections into a single, reasonably strong one. the next set of patterns print in exactly the right Today, the mirrors inside ASML’s EUV machines consist of 40 pairs place. “People were looking in those days at the of alternating silicon and molybdenum layers—each just a few nanome- alternatives,” van Dijsseldonk says, “and EUV was ters thick. Zeiss, the company that developed these mirrors, constructs the exotic one.” their aspheric surfaces with great precision. But at the end of the day, But from the beginning, ASML’s EUV researchers van Dijsseldonk says, “if you do it fantastically [well], you get a mir- were convinced they could make the technology ror with a reflectivity of 70 percent.” That level of reflectivity means work—and that it would be the most economical that, for every pair of mirrors used in the system, the light is cut by option for chipmakers. Before the decade was out, half. And a scanner could easily require a dozen mirrors to take light the company had decided to build demonstration from the source to the mask—itself a mirror—and then on to the wafer. scanners that could be used by other researchers After an EUV beam has traversed this gauntlet, less than 2 percent of ML

AS to test the approach. the light may be left.

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | nov 2016 | 31

11.LithographyFuture2.INT - 11.LithographyFuture.NA [P]{NA}.indd 31 10/13/16 4:47 PM The Molten Tin Solution

Curves and Corners EUV promises to create sharper shapes [right] than those that can be created through multiple patterning with today’s 193-nanometer light [left]. The lines in these micrographs have a minimum width of 24 nm.

The less light that reaches a wafer, the longer a wafer must remain in the scanner to be exposed. And in a fab, time means money. For EUV to make it into commercial use, it needs to be able to compete with the cost of existing lithographic methods. So the losses among the mirrors have to be compensated by a radiation source that is extremely bright. And that proved to be really, really hard to engineer.

In the early days, EUV researchers used just about everything they could think of to generate X-rays, including lasers and particle accelerators. But the method that won out, which seemed to offer a practical and economical way to get sufficient brightness, employs plasma. Zap the right material with a powerful enough laser or electric current and you can separate electrons from the atoms they’re attached to. The resulting plasma will radiate EUV as the superhot blob cools back to its prezapped state. HEADED EAST: A portion of an ASML NXE:3350B The oft-repeated target for such plasma-based light sources has EUV scanner is loaded onto a 747-400 extended- been 250 watts at the intermediate focus, the location where the EUV range freighter at the Amsterdam Airport light exits the source and enters the scanner. That level of light would Schiphol in the Netherlands, for shipment to a customer. The scanner is split into nine parts enable the machine to produce in the neighborhood of 125 wafers per (some larger than others) for shipping. hour, a mass production target that is about half the rate of today’s advanced 193-nm machines. But for a number of years, progress was slow, and brightness improvements consistently lagged behind predictions. By 2011, some five years technique the Cymer team began exploring before after ASML delivered its first test scanners to two customers, one of the being acquired by ASML. They found that if they leading light-source developers, San Diego–based Cymer, had succeeded fired a “prepulse” before the main laser, they could in developing a source that could consistently deliver 11 W. “We prob- flatten each tin droplet into a pancake, creating more ably underestimated how difficult it would be,” concedes ASML’s Hans surface area for the main laser to hit and increas- Meiling, who is responsible for EUV product marketing. In the end, in ing how much of the tin droplet was converted to an effort to accelerate development, ASML put in a bid for Cymer, for- plasma. The change has boosted the laser-to-EUV mally completing the reported €3.1 billion acquisition in 2013. conversion efficiency from a meager 1 percent to To create EUV light, Cymer uses an approach called laser-produced some 5 percent. Earlier this year, thanks to the plasma, which fires 50,000 microscopic droplets a second of ultra- prepulse and other optimizations, ASML reported pure molten tin across a vacuum chamber, hitting each with powerful that it had reached 200 W in the lab. Another light-

CO2-laser light generated by a series of amplifiers derived from a design source developer, Gigaphoton, has also reported originally used for metal cutting. When a laser pulse hits a molten tin great progress. The long-awaited production tar- droplet, it heats it up into an EUV-emitting plasma. A collector mirror get of 250 W no longer seems far off. But the true reflects light created in this process and casts it into the scanner. Because test of whether EUV is ready to go into production the approach generates EUV light as well as tin debris, hydrogen gas will happen in the labs and fabs—and spreadsheets— constantly flows across the collector mirror to keep it from being rap- of ASML’s chipmaking customers. idly covered with a layer of tin. “The first time I heard about it, I thought it was insane,” admits ASML’s Nobody doubts that EUV machines can make Alberto Pirati, who joined the company’s EUV light-source program in fine features. Go to a semiconductor conference early 2013. But little by little, the team achieved the seemingly impos- and you’ll probably come across a presentation ML (5) ML

sible. One of the biggest breakthroughs came with the introduction of a with sharp-looking micrographs of EUV-made pat- AS

32 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.LithographyFuture2.INT - 11.LithographyFuture.NA [P]{NA}.indd 32 10/13/16 4:47 PM 11.LithographyFuture2.INT - 11.LithographyFuture.NA [P]{NA}.indd 33

ASML (4) The The with colleagues fromwith colleagues IBM. when itmakes its14-nm chips,themostadvanced wafer can berunoncethroughwafer to fash can thescanner - which water places asiliconwafer between andthe wavelength. feat was made This possibleby major two width ofaNew York shipped busandis inmul- City 193-nm produce systems lithographic - chipfea can Droplet Evolution lets engineerscreate features that are more closely half, can be Because slightly wafer position offset. of a a of into theworld costlierandmore complex. determined withgreat multiple precision, patterning ion halfofthem,andthenagainto fashion theother ing thefeatures inalayer ormore into two steps. To multiple which patterning, splits theprocess ofmak SUNY Polytechnic Institute facility inAlbany, PolytechnicSUNY Institute facility along company’s at of evaluating task a thetechnology to make thoselayers. Andthecompany anticipates through ascanner—and every used other tool that is layers, critical extra achip takes two certain passes currentlyones created inFab for that, means 8.This additioneach makes theprocess achip ofbringing themoreciple, steps used,the finer the features. But create asetofclosely for spaced example, holes, a newest machineexceeds €100 EUV million,more ofASML’s seemsdaunting. price ing EUV Thelist optics that project a pattern onto it. The second was was second that project apatternoptics The onto it. tures with dimensions that are of that a small fraction the costs Today’s of manufacturing. state-of-the-art than that ofa193-nm machine. could besome1.5megawatts, more significantly tiple 747s. load Customers estimate theelectrical breakthroughs. The first immersion lithography,was than twice that ofanaveragethan twice 193-nm scanner, says the massproduction ofmajor commercial chips— today’s conventional methods. terns, made juxtaposed ones using againstblurrier and whenCertainly, itwilldoit. thecostofadopt- generation, says George who leading the Gomba, is going to quadruple patterning at 7nm, its next chip spaced thanwould bepossible inonestep.- Inprin spokesperson about theheightand NiclasMika.Itis Today, GlobalFoundries patterning triple uses The question now what is role willplay EUV in But a simple comparison of specs won’t ofspecs But asimplecomparison capture all To create EUV light, light, EUV To create a second pulse. by plasma emitting light- to converted one by flattened are molten tin droplets droplets tin molten laser pulse and then then and pulse laser -

“every singledieonyour damaged. wafer is Basically, you endup can wafers produced, tens or even hundreds ofthousands ofdollars’ worth with zero yield.” Months ofwork and,dependingonthenumber of M Law, hewon’t beat around thebush: “Totally 100percent- criti critical. to lithography Moore’s is EUV development EUV how at TSMC, critical of€ committed Co. atotal Manufacturing (TSMC) pattern onthewafer. piece ofdustfallsonthepellicle,itwillbetoo out offocus to create a figure thatnotincludethe does researchers at leadingchipmakers and film called a pellicle, which is suspended a short distance called apellicle, is suspendedwhich a distance film awayshort and light; EUV wouldlight; EUV quickly obliterate them.ASML plannedto buildthe question to answer because itdependsonanumber ofunknown factors, including how lightsources EUV bright willbecomeandtheuptimeof it is ready.it is A key when is question the colleagues cost and for his Gomba of EUV willbreak evenof EUV withmultiple patterning. Andit’s avery tricky out EUV, inwhen reserving theoption ofpullingthetechnology butitis nered ASML€ ing to ASMLfor next-generation lithography research gar (thesamedeal research programs institutionswithEUV oftheirown. money into EUV. Intel, In2012, Samsung, andTaiwan Semiconductor to blotout hundreds ifa Thanksto oftransistors. themagicoptics, company producingline. aimstochipsonits5-nmmanufacturing begin Very,cal. very critical.” TSMCexpects toin2020, adopt EUV when the of chipswould be lost. the potential downside. gets “Ifoneparticle onamask,” Yen explains, chipmakers are coming around soon,they to that, may theidea notbe the pesky matter of reflectance becomes an issue. the pesky an matter becomes ofreflectance are scanner reflective,the EUV is the mask. And here, so too once again, top ofYen’s protecting themask, thestencil-like is list surface that carries available to beused. system—thean entire lithographic percentage EUV oftimeit’s actually a pieceofdusttoo smallto seewiththenaked eye stillbigenough is able to move forward Ifyou without it. ask Anthony Yen, who leads a pattern to beprinted onthewafer. components of Just astheoptical scanners without butchipmakers pellicles, scanners weren’t with comfortable stretched across itlike apieceofplastic wrap. At current feature sizes, GlobalFoundries andIBMare nottheonly that ones have poured eiling estimates about 4,000 peoplework for thecompany, onEUV a The reason investment for hard allthis not only is that is butthat EUV

In a193-nm protected immersionmachine,themask by is athin For now, GlobalFoundries plansto roll out its7-nm with- chipsin2018 But these 193-nm aren’tBut these pellicles to betransparent designed to 13.5 For now, though, there are challenges. stillsome engineering At the 3.85 billionfor nonvoting shares inthecompany). ASML’s SP ECTR U M . IEEE . OR G

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nm nm e 10/13/16 4:47PM 33 41 - 11.LightCamera.NA.indd 34 10/11/16 8:38 AM A By Rajiv Pocket Laroia Camera

This With cellphone- size camera’s pictures are as Many good as those from today’s Eyes DSLRs

Photograph by Sue Tallon

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 35

11.LightCamera.NA.indd 35 10/11/16 8:38 AM I n 2011, I was looking for my next challenge. I had just left Flarion Tech- nologies, a company I had founded and later sold. My engineering career—as a researcher at Lucent Technologies’ Bell Labs, before I started Flarion—had been in communications and information theory, so I’d expected to stay involved in those technologies. But I found myself instead thinking more and more about cameras. I had taken photographs with film cameras as a child in India, but I never had any particularly good equipment. I was intrigued when digital photography started taking off, but I didn’t buy my first digital camera until 1999, when my daughter was born. I took a lot of pictures with that Kodak camera, then moved on to various Sony digital cameras. Eventually, when DSLRs came out, I went all out, purchasing a couple of DSLR cameras, a bunch of Canon lenses, and all sorts of other equipment—three camera bags’ worth. And I took lots of pictures with this gear. Ten-plus years later, I got an iPhone and also started taking pictures with it, not because the quality was really there but because of the convenience: he best digital cameras today are I had to plan ahead if I wanted to take T SLRs (single-lens reflex cameras), which use a movable mir- pictures with one of my good cameras, ror to guide the same light rays that fall on the sensor into which I did less and less. As I talked with the viewfinder. These cameras normally have precisely ground glass lenses other avid photographers, I discovered I and large, high-quality image sensors. In the right hands, they can shoot wasn’t the only one who had expensive amazing pictures, with brilliant colors and pleasing lighting effects, often camera gear gathering dust. It’s not that showing a crisply focused subject and an aesthetically blurred background. any of us were happy with the quality • But these cameras are big, heavy, and expensive: A good digital SLR (DSLR) of the pictures we were taking with our with a decent set of lenses—including a standard 50 mm, a wide angle, and a phones—indeed, we were all frustrated telephoto, for example—can easily set you back thousands of dollars. • So most by it. But at the end of the day, conve- photos today aren’t being shot with DSLRs but with the tiny camera modules nience always won out. built into mobile phones. Nobody pretends these pictures match the quality So when I was looking around for a of a photograph taken by a good DSLR; they tend to be grainy, and the cam- new professional challenge, I realized era allows very little artistic control. But smartphone cameras certainly are I could attack a problem I was dealing easy to carry around. • Can’t we have it both ways? Couldn’t a high-quality with myself. But I didn’t start immedi- yet still-tiny camera somehow be fit into a mobile device? • That’s the ques- ately; I didn’t know optics well, and I tion I asked myself five years ago. And the very positive answer, announced assumed that if there was to be a tech- last October and shipping early in 2017, is coming from a company I started: nical solution it would come from some- Light. • The Light camera starts with a collection of inexpensive plastic-lens body who did. camera modules and mechanically driven mirrors. We put them in a device But I kept investigating, and I soon that runs the standard Android operating system along with some smart discovered that most experts in optics algorithms. The result is a camera that can do just about everything a DSLR don’t really understand digital-image can—and one thing it can’t: fit in your pocket. More on how it works later. First, processing, and electrical engineers let me tell you a little bit about my background, because that helps explain and computer scientists who under- how—and why—I came up with this approach. stand digital images don’t generally

36 | NOV 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG photograph by Gabriela Hasbun

11.LightCamera.NA.indd 36 10/11/16 8:38 AM know much about optics. The solution, I later realized, straddled both the digital and the optical worlds. And I had the luxury of being able to sit at home and teach myself optics for a year. I had only a rough idea of how the problem might be solved at that point. But as I dug in, I realized not only that there might be a technical solution but also that this was the perfect time to try to build a different kind of commercially viable camera. I knew that cellphone camera lenses were molded out of plastic—that’s why they were so inexpensive. And thanks to cellphones, molded plastic lens technology had been nearly perfected over the previous five years to the point where these lenses were “diffraction limited”—that is, for their size, they were as good as the fundamental physics would ever allow them to be. Meanwhile, the cost had dropped dramatically: A five-element smartphone camera lens today costs only about US $1 when purchased in volume. (Elements are the thin layers that make up a plastic lens.) And sensor prices had plummeted as well: A high-resolution (13-megapixel) camera sensor now costs just about $3 in volume. While smartphone lenses have become extremely good, the quality of the smartphone camera today is nowhere comparable to that of a high- end DSLR. There are four main reasons: First, the lenses of smartphone cameras are small and collect very little light. And you can’t produce good pic- PUZZLING IT OUT: Fitting the 16 cameras [above] into a box of a reasonable size turned out tures without capturing enough light to be a challenge. Light founder Rajiv Laroia [opposite] did paper sketches and then tried to figure it out on a computer-assisted-design system. Eventually, he cut out bits of paper [top] energy. So smartphone photos will and worked with them as if they were part of a jigsaw puzzle. often be “noisy” or grainy, particularly in low light. Second, small sensors and a high pixel count mean that the individual pixels are tiny (approximately 1 micrometer across), and therefore large depth of field—that is, they are tures simultaneously, which could then

y hit a saturation point after receiving sharp over a very large range of subject be combined digitally. By using many rr e

P just a little bit of light. This results in distances from the camera. That might modules, the camera could capture a S. S. a l pictures with very limited dynamic sound like a good thing, but it’s not, more light energy. The effective size of range (limited differences between the because controlling the depth of field each pixel would also increase because om: Tek om:

tt darkest darks and the lightest lights). is essential for artistic photography. each object in the scene would be cap- Third, smartphone-camera lenses have I thought that all these shortcomings tured in multiple pictures, increas- oia; Bo oia; r a fixed focal length and so can’t zoom. of smartphone cameras might be over- ing the dynamic range and reducing Finally, because of the small lens aper- come by using multiple smartphone graininess. By using camera modules

Top: Rajiv La Rajiv Top: ture, smartphone pictures have a very camera modules to take multiple pic- with different focal lengths, the camera

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 37

11.LightCamera.NA.indd 37 10/11/16 8:38 AM Standard image Controlled depth of field

28 mm 70 mm 150 mm

would also gain the ability to zoom in Choices, Choices: Though the individual camera modules have fixed and out. And if we arranged the mul- focal lengths and aperture sizes, combining the images from the lenses in tiple camera modules to create what different ways allows photographers to change the depth of field and zoom was effectively a larger aperture, the using the focal-length equivalents of 28 mm through 150 mm. photographer could control the depth of field of the final image. While at that point I knew it was theo- retically possible to use multiple modules to overcome the shortcomings of And so later in 2013, I joined with larger focal length has a higher magnifica- a small camera, I needed to confirm Dave Grannan, who had just left tion and makes the subjects appear larger. that such a strategy was truly practi- Nuance Communications, and officially All the lenses in the L16 are molded cal. So I figured I’d better check with started Light. plastic, and all the camera modules some optics experts. In the first half of capture images using standard CMOS 2013, I cold-called Julie Bentley, a lens- The first and current version of the sensors, similar to those used in smart- design expert at the University of Roch- Light camera—called the L16—has 16 indi- phone cameras. Each camera module has ester, in New York, and drove 5 hours vidual camera modules with lenses of a lens, an image sensor, and an actuator from where I was living in New Jersey three different focal lengths—five are for moving the lens to focus the image. to meet with her. 28-mm equivalent, five are 70-mm equiv- Each lens has a fixed aperture of F2.4— It started as a contentious conver- alent, and six are 150-mm equivalent. that is, the focal length of the lens divided sation: She basically told me I was “Equivalent” means that the lens by its diameter is equal to 2.4. (A lens crazy. But she kept asking questions. I achieves the same field of view as a lens with a lower F number has a larger aper- answered them, apparently convinc- of the specified focal length in a conven- ture and so lets in more light.) ingly, because after about 45 minutes, tional film camera. For a simple single- Five of these camera modules capture she became supportive of the approach lens element, when light comes from far images at what we think of as a 28-mm I was proposing and sent me to Moondog away and hits the lens, it converges at a field of view; that’s a wide-angle lens on Optics in Fairport, N.Y., a company that point. The focal length represents the a standard SLR. These camera modules does optical design. I met with the CEO, distance of that point from the lens. For point straight out. Five other modules

Scott Cahall, who thought what I was example, the equivalent focal length of a provide the equivalent of 70-mm tele- t

suggesting was doable. human eye is around 50 mm. A lens with a photo lenses, and six work as 150-mm Ligh

38 | NOV 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.LightCamera.NA.indd 38 10/11/16 8:38 AM equivalents. These 11 modules point side- ways, but each has a mirror in front of Zoom, Zoom the lens, so they, too, take images of To shoot an image with the equivalent of a 28-mm focal length, the Light objects in front of the camera. A linear camera’s 28-mm and 70-mm camera modules get into the act; the resulting actuator attached to each mirror can 52-megapixel image is a combination of the data. To shoot at 70 mm, the adjust it slightly to move the center of 70-mm and 150-mm camera modules go to work and the 28-mm modules its field of view. rest. The Light camera doesn’t contain any 50-mm modules, so taking a Each image sensor has a 13-megapixel 50-mm image involves the 28-mm and 70-mm modules (the former slightly resolution. When the user takes a pic- cropped and the latter slightly overlapped), resulting in a 40-megapixel image. ture, depending on the zoom level, the camera normally selects 10 of the 16 modules and simultaneously captures 10 separate images. Proprietary algorithms are then used to combine the 10 views into one high-quality picture with a total resolution of up to 52 megapixels. The image fusion can be done either in the camera or on another computer. 28 mm When you press the shutter button to take a 28-mm image, all five 28-mm modules fire simultaneously, recording five images of the same thing but from slightly different perspectives. All five 70-mm modules also record images. Normally, a 70-mm lens can capture approximately a quarter of the scene that a 28-mm lens takes. But our camera adjusts the mirrors in front of four 70 mm of those lenses so that different modules point at each of the four quadrants of the 28-mm frame we’re trying to take, so these four 70-mm images effectively end up covering most of the 28-mm frame. Because four 70-mm images are recorded, each at a 13-megapixel resolution, the camera captures 52 megapixels of information. The fifth 70-mm module

points at the center of the 28-mm frame to 50 mm ensure the best picture quality at the center of the final image. The software in the camera uses information from the 28-mm modules to precisely stitch together the 70-mm images and then combines all the the 70-mm modules’ field of view. And accomplish this synchronously across data into one high-resolution, high-quality once again, we combine the many images multiple camera modules. So we took a picture. It’s easy to see how this process digitally to provide a better picture than systems approach to solving the problem, ink l lets us capture much more light than if a single-module camera could possibly using fixed-focal-length lenses. ie Vr

ik ik we’d just used one camera module. take, one that rivals a DSLR image. Suppose you wanted to capture an Er

s To take pictures at 70 mm, we move the We can even use our technology to image with a 50-mm field of view, smaller ion

t mirrors so that the five 70-mm modules zoom anywhere in the range of 28 to than what a 28-mm lens captures but a

str now point straight out from the camera; 150 mm. Traditional zoom lenses change larger than that of a 70-mm lens. We acti- u Ill

;

t all of them cover approximately the same focal length by physically moving the lens vate all the 28-mm camera modules and

Ligh crop each of the images to the 50-mm : field of view but from slightly different elements with respect to one another s

aph perspectives. We now enlist the 150-mm when you rotate the zoom-control ring. frame. (Cropping is not ideal because r

og modules as well, adjusting their mirrors Our modules are too small to have either we lose some sensor area and light.) We t ho

P so that they capture four images that tile the space or the mechanical precision to also simultaneously use the 70-mm mod-

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | NOV 2016 | 39

11.LightCamera.NA.indd 39 10/11/16 8:38 AM ules. But before we do that, we move the The Light camera also naturally allows will allow you to tell the camera what mirrors on four of the 70-mm modules for an increased dynamic range. That’s you want to do—take a portrait, say, in so the captured 70-mm images overlap because the modules don’t all have to which case the camera will activate enough to cover only the 50-mm frame. use the same exposure. We can delib- the flash if it’s dark, select a shallow This way, we retain all of the light col- erately overexpose pictures in some depth of field to highlight the subject, lected by the 70-mm modules. modules so that they can image the dark and adjust the exposure. The manual There are other advantages to having areas with less noise, while underex- mode will offer more controls, but we’re multiple lenses. Because the different posing others to capture the highlights not going to ask users to set 10 differ- lenses are set slightly apart from one perfectly. Because the camera records ent exposures on 10 different camera another, just as your eyes are, the Light redundant images, it still has all the modules. We will likely allow them to camera can obtain images from multiple information to reconstruct the final pic- set everything that they could adjust on viewpoints and use them to generate a ture, but with a much larger dynamic a DSLR—flash, aperture, shutter speed, depth map of the scene. That’s valuable range. Apple iPhone cameras can do this ISO, and exposure—and let the camera’s because it allows the software to produce today in their HDR (high dynamic range) software figure out the details. any desired depth of field by appropri- mode, but they achieve that by taking a ately blurring those portions of the scene sequence of pictures in time, which can Our first-generation L16 camera will that are outside a selected range of depths. cause motion artifacts. start reaching consumers early next The software can also change what is Recording all these images and then year, for an initial retail price of $1,699. called the bokeh, which refers to the aes- properly combining them into a com- Meanwhile, we have started thinking thetic quality of the blur that appears in posite image takes a lot of processing about future versions. For example, the out-of-focus parts of an image. Tra- power. We’re using the Qualcomm Snap- we can improve the low-light perfor- dragon 820 processor, which mance. Because we are capturing so today is the state of the art in many redundant images, we don’t need mobile processing. We also to have every one in color. With the I want to use this technology have a custom integrated cir- standard sensors we are using, every cuit that enables us to inter- pixel has a filter in front of it to select to build a camera with a face 16 cameras with the red, green, or blue light. But without 600-mm lens equivalent Snapdragon processor. This such a filter we can collect three times allows near real-time process- as much light, because we don’t filter ing of images in the camera, two-thirds of the light out. So we’d like to which results in a resolution mix in camera modules that don’t have ditional cameras adjust their lens aper- of about three megapixels; that’s good the filters, and we’re now working with tures by opening and closing an iris of enough for sharing on social media. On Semiconductor, our sensor manufac- sorts made of plastic leaves, overlapped We expect that most of our users will turer, to produce such image sensors. to try to mimic a circular opening. As a render full-resolution images on their But beyond tweaking our current result, small, bright, out-of-focus objects computers, though. That will be faster technology to improve performance, I appear as regular polygons or circular and won’t eat up the battery of the mobile have a more ambitious goal. I want to use disks. This is the effect most people are unit. In the next generation of our camera, this technology to build a camera with a used to. Many photographers consider we will build in hardware acceleration of 600-mm lens equivalent in something the ideal bokeh as having a very gentle our processing algorithms, which will the size of a tablet computer, perhaps a roll-off, with no sharp edges defining the then enable the camera to process full- little thicker. Today, a 600-mm lens is circle—a Gaussian blur. resolution images and manipulate the bigger than a rolling pin, weighs more Photographers will pay a lot of money depth of field without unduly taxing the than 4 kilograms, and costs upwards of for a lens with the right bokeh. In our battery or the user’s patience. $12,000. Only professional wildlife or design, the camera uses software to The rest of our camera hardware is a sports photographers would ever buy add blur with the right bokeh to those standard Android package, which can one. But if consumers could afford a 600- parts of the scene that are outside the run Android apps; it’s about the same mm camera, travel with it easily, and selected depth of field. This approach length and width as a smartphone, but take high-quality pictures with it, that means that users can get whatever bokeh at 21 mm it’s about two to three times as would be incredibly cool. they want. They can choose the conven- thick. This approach lets us easily write a That’s my next challenge. For now, tional disk-shaped bokeh or one with a user-friendly camera app to simplify the however, I’m looking forward to see- Gaussian blur. Or they can get creative— interface and make it less intimidating ing Light technology migrate into cell- for instance, picking a star-shaped bokeh to use the camera’s advanced features. phones. Then the cameras we all carry for use in holiday photos, making small The Light camera can run in either with us everywhere will be as good as decorative lights appear as stars. auto or manual mode. The auto mode the ones we leave sitting at home. ■

40 | NOV 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG .↗ Post your comments at http://spectrum.ieee.org/lightcamera1116

11.LightCamera.NA.indd 40 10/11/16 8:38 AM 11.LithographyFuture2.INT - 11.LithographyFuture.NA [P]{NA}.indd 41

source: ASML; illustration: mark montgomery ued ued cont ↗ The pelliclehasto beastransparent aspossible,so withstand the harshwithstand onslaught radiation of EUV . wafer. Andit’s Because case: doubly difficultinthis way inandonceontheway out. potential customers want to see resolved before EUV masksEUV are reflective rathertransmissive, than TIN POWER: To generate EUV, ASML’s light source hits a rapid-fire stream of molten tin droplets with with droplets tin molten of stream arapid-fire hits source ASML’s EUV, light To generate POWER: TIN areresists, made from polymeric chainsofmolecules of EUV light, explains light, of EUV Andrew Grenville, CEOofthe materialsthese are absorbers notespecially efficient that multiply ofincomingphotons. But theeffect take amask’s pattern. the light-sensitive layer coated that is onawafer to free. thephotoresist— Another piece ofthepuzzleis efficient ways to confirm that theyfact defect are in to make masks EUV free develop ofdefects—and they committo thetechnology. theability Oneis light must onthe go through apellicletwice—once been researching ways to make apelliclethat can that lostbefore littleadditional lightis itgets to the create a plasma. A collector to mirror the directs resulting radiation intodroplet the scanner.the heats which pulse,” “main a with hit then and “prepulse” by a flattened is droplet tin Each laser pulses. The process begins beneath the fab floor, in a system that generates two sets of laser pulses. pulses. laser of sets two generates that system in a floor, fab the beneath begins process The pulses. laser The Mol Post your comments comments your Post Today’s known resists, amplified aschemically There are stillotherchallenges that its withEUV i n t en Tin Solu fr o transport Beam m pa at http://spectrum.ieee.org/lithographyfuture1116 g focusing Power amplifiers system e Laser 33 | t ion Droplet generator As aresult, ASMLhasAs CO 2 laser system Sub-fab floor Fab floor Tin catch Seed laser unit we’re going to seethemarketplace splitting upandlotsofcompanies EUV-resist What’s Inpria. startup more, therecorded image tends to blur pieces will come togetherpieces for chipmakers by Planning for 2018. a new chip- finally end.Butitjustmightlightthepath ahead. how finely can print features but onhowwe well physicists andengi- doing lotsofdifferent things.” rapid-fire sequence oftinplasmaflashes won’t beable to shed any light keepneers can improving theresulting and circuits. transistors Even a manently or temporarily? Lithography expert Mack doubts Chris that all the ing onaresist made ofsmallertin-oxide componentsthat are to designed material. To make finer features than we have today,“you really need much on exactly when theworld’s winningstreak will greatest technological chip- chips may prove too much—and the performance benefitsnotimpres- hesays,that point, theoverall cost ofthenext generation of advanced for adoption andwillreduce costs, Mack manufacturing says. Butby absorb EUV fiveabsorb EUV as times readilycreate and patterns without amplification. sive enough—for chipmakers to Already, pursue it. Mack says, older smaller andmore robust buildingblocks,” Grenville says. work is Inpria slightly through diffuses asthelight-triggered amplification the reaction As it has in the past, thefate ofMoore’s ithasinthepast, As Law willhinge notonly on Will itallbeready intime to keep Moore’s Law from eitherper dissolving, man ufacturing generationsufacturing are staying in the mixlonger: “I think Intermediate SP focus ECTR U M . Scanner IEEE . OR G

| N orth Americ EUV injustafewEUV years’ time, toMaking acommitment use however, admit to a “glimmer car sports Elise Lotus his he says, too risky.” “is happens years inadvance. reach a point where ready it is down inMoore’s Law could real possibility that this slow that this real possibility successiveing between chip and ontrack iaturization generationmanufacturing costs cause Moore’s Law to time toup.” catch to haveenable EUV enough opening, hesays:opening, “There’s a ting longer, andchipfeatures costs undercontrol; thetim- Chipmakersof hope”for it. are not shrinking- as aggres toare keep struggling min- against thetechnology, does, grind to a halt. EUV may EUV to ahalt. grind well generations seemsto beget- skeptic who oncewagered struggles could givestruggles an EUV sively asthey usedto. These Enough time, that is, beforeEnough time,that is, Mack, a notoriousMack, EUV ■ a n

nov 2016

10/13/16 4:47PM 41 - - -

Can Solar Save the Grid?

ALOHA, SOLAR: A worker from SolarCity installs photovoltaic panels on a house in Hawaii, the U.S. state with the highest penetration of rooftop solar systems connected to the grid.

42 | Nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.SmartSolarInverter.INT - 11.SmartSolarInverter.NA [P]{NA}.indd 42 10/14/16 8:44 AM Using a new technique called By virtual oscillator control, Benjamin solar PV systems can help stabilize the power grid Kroposki

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | Nov 2016 | 43

11.SmartSolarInverter.INT - 11.SmartSolarInverter.NA [P]{NA}.indd 43 10/14/16 8:44 AM problems that threaten to research by NREL and its destabilize the grid. While partners. My colleagues at this is not yet a major prob- NREL have also been devel- lem, it could become one as oping an innovative method distributed solar systems for controlling inverters that proliferate. will keep the grid stable even The cause of the prob- when all of the power is com- lem is the inverter, an elec- ing from solar, wind, and tronic system that converts other forms of generation W the direct current (DC) sup- that connect to the grid via plied by the PV panels into an inverter. the alternating current (AC) Smart inverters are poised that flows on the power grid. to fill a big need in the fast- The vast majority of invert- evolving electric-utility When Steve Johnson had solar panels ers sold to homes and busi- industry. As more and more installed on the roof of his Boulder, Colo., home several years nesses today, including the homeowners put PV panels ago, he considered it his personal contribution to making the one on Johnson’s house in on their roofs, the power world a little cleaner. And if his grid-connected photovoltaic Boulder, are “dumb” invert- they are supplying is reduc- (PV) system would occasionally cause his electricity meter ers. Although they supply ing the need for big, cen- to spin backward during the day and trim his utility bills, so AC at the right voltage and tralized generating plants. much the better. frequency to sync with the The upshot is that increas- It was only later, during a tour of the National Renewable distribution grid, they are ing numbers of these tra- Energy Laboratory (NREL), in nearby Golden, that he learned otherwise passive. They ditional power plants are about solar’s potential downside: Most PV systems are set up can’t sense what is happen- getting retired, and grid to disconnect from the grid whenever they detect a signifi- ing on the grid and adjust operators are scrambling for cant fault. If a single home’s PV system trips off-line, it’s only themselves accordingly. ways to keep their networks a headache for the owner. But if hundreds or thousands of But newer “smart” invert- running with the same high them do so simultaneously, it could upset the network’s deli- ers can prevent a PV system level of reliability that their cate balance, turning an otherwise small disturbance into from going off-line when it customers have long taken an outage blacking out an entire city or county. doesn’t have to. By doing so, for granted. The combina- Throughout much of the developed world, electric utili- they can actually make the tion of smart inverters and ties are facing an unprecedented challenge. Growing num- grid more stable, by prevent- new control methods will bers of customers are installing solar PV systems on their ing the sudden deterioration be essential to helping util- homes or businesses. In the United States alone, the instal- of voltage and frequency that ities transition to the grid lation of PV systems has seen a compound annual growth would otherwise occur when of the future, in which vast rate of nearly 60 percent since 2010, resulting in an installed hundreds or thousands of PV amounts of wind- and solar- capacity of 32 gigawatts. The power they’re injecting into panels are suddenly taken generated electricity will be distribution lines is causing voltage- and frequency-control off-line, according to recent the norm.

S TEADY STATE: A new technique known as virtual oscillator control allows smart solar inverters to sense and adjust to grid disturbances, such as a sudden change in frequency or voltage. As distributed solar grows and big power plants are retired, VOC will help keep the grid stable. olarCity S Previous Pages: Pages: Previous

44 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG Illustration: Mark Montgomery

11.SmartSolarInverter.INT - 11.SmartSolarInverter.NA [P]{NA}.indd 44 10/14/16 8:44 AM onsider what can be wind, but a lot of it will happen on a be distributed solar. sunny day at Even now, the solar pene- C noon when a coal- tration on the island of Oahu fired plant unexpectedly is high enough that the state’s goes off-line or a transmis- electricity utility, Hawaiian sion line suddenly goes Electric Company (HECO), down. The loss might cause regularly contends with dis- the grid voltage to dip by up tributed solar systems feed- to 10 percent. To restore the ing power back through voltage to normal, techni- distribution lines into sub- cians must bring additional stations. Such backfeeding in generation on line quickly— itself is not a problem. How- through, for instance, ever, if a distribution line backup “spinning reserve” is suddenly knocked out capacity that a utility main- of commission, that solar tains for just such a situation. generation gets redirected Or they could curtail toward the customers’ facili- demand, perhaps through ties. Let’s say a tree branch an automated mechanism grounds a line and causes known as demand response, the line’s circuit breaker to which enlists customers to open; the backfed power can reduce their electricity con- then flow back toward any sumption when power homes or businesses up to prices are high or when grid the point where the line’s reliability is threatened. breaker opened. What you don’t want to hap- This surge of power causes pen in a situation like this is the voltage to spike. If the to lose even more generators— spike is high enough and and yet that is exactly what lasts long enough, it can does happen when a host of damage motors, generators, dumb inverters switches off and distribution equipment. en masse. Left unchecked, To prevent such overvolt- what starts as a minor voltage situations, HECO and age drop can cascade into a T OMORROW’S GRID: The National Renewable Energy the Hawaiian Utility Com- widespread fiasco. Laboratory’s Murali Baggu, Greg Martin, and Bryan mission decreed in 2014 Palmintier [top] test a smart PV inverter linked to a power To be sure, there’s a good grid simulator. Brian Johnson [bottom] studies a custom- that the amount of solar reason for inverters to dis- built virtual oscillator control system. generated power on any connect when the grid is distribution line on Oahu down: You wouldn’t want could not exceed 120 per- PV systems to inadvertently cent of that line’s minimum energize a downed power communications capabili- dents and businesses power- daytime load. The unsurpris- line because that line could ties, they can let grid oper- ful motivation to install their ing result was that several shock anyone who touched ators monitor and control own PV systems. The state thousand HECO customers it. But in the first few sec- them in response to chang- now has about 20 times as were prohibited from con- onds of a fault, it’s critical ing conditions. many solar installations connecting their PV systems to to maintain PV generation To understand the effects nected to its grid as the aver- the grid. Many others who in sections of the grid that of smart solar inverters on age mainland state does, and were contemplating install- have not been damaged. utility systems, there’s no that trend is likely to con- ing new rooftop systems In contrast to dumb invert- better place to study them tinue. Last year the Hawai- decided not to, and quite a ers, a smart inverter can than Hawaii. The state has ian government set a goal few solar installers saw their “ride through” voltage or the highest electricity rates to obtain 100 percent of its business decline. frequency dips and other in the United States, which, electricity generation from Clearly, a better solu- short-term grid disturbances. along with incentives from renewable energy sources tion was needed. Through REL

N And if these inverters have the utility, has given resi- by 2045. Some of that will the U.S. Department of

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11.SmartSolarInverter.INT - 11.SmartSolarInverter.NA [P]{NA}.indd 45 10/14/16 8:44 AM Energy’s SunShot Initiative, power grid mechanical iner- NREL researchers Sudipta tia: They are very large and Chakraborty and Ander- rigidly synchronized with son Hoke worked with engi- each other, so only major dis- neers at HECO and SolarCity, turbances can affect the the country’s largest solar- grid’s frequency. power provider, to study But distributed energy ways to allow more solar on sources, including solar, the Oahu grid. They started wind, fuel cells, and batter- by running inverter tests at ies, don’t have synchronous NREL’s Energy Systems Inte- generators; they supply vari- gration Facility to check dif- able and uncertain amounts ferent scenarios in which an of electricity, and the invert- overvoltage occurred. The ers they use to connect to the goal was to see if smart % of Daytime 800,000 microinverters grid are designed to sim- Minimum Load inverters could respond to on OAHU already installed on the ply lock onto the grid’s fre- such overvoltages by quickly Oahu grid, to allow them to quency and follow it. And as Less than 50% reducing the amount of ride through frequency and renewable-energy genera- power they were releasing 50 to 100% voltage anomalies and help tion spreads, many large cen- onto the grid. 100 to 250% improve grid stability dur- tral power plants—especially The researchers ran the ing such disturbances. And coal—are being retired. Even- 250% and greater tests using five commer- HECO has more than dou- tually, the grid will lack the cially available advanced This map shows the bled its limit on PV capac- inertia it has today to main- inverters ranging in capac- relative density of ity on each distribution line, tain a stable voltage and fre- grid-connected PV ity from 3 to 12 kilowatts. systems installed on to 250 percent of the min- quency in the event of a large Among the types of invert- the Hawaiian island imum daytime load. The disturbance. ers tested were string invert- of Oahu. utility’s moves may eventu- For this reason, the ers, which draw DC power ally have a national or even power grids of the future from one or more strings global impact, as the IEEE may need advanced invert- of solar panels, and micro and UL, which set interna- ers that don’t simply follow inverters, which draw from tional technical standards what the grid is doing but a single panel. They con- addition, the voltage spikes for inverters, are now pre- actually help form the grid, nected each inverter to a lasted only microseconds paring to include overvolt- by responding instanta- grid simulator and a load to milliseconds, an accept- age protections in their neously to disturbances and that simulated the home ably short duration. The smart-inverter standards. working in concert to help to which the panels would tests demonstrated that keep the grid stable. This be supplying power. They when smart inverters were hile the cur- approach, known as virtual then monitored the invert- installed, voltage spikes rent genera- oscillator control (VOC), was er’s response when the grid posed less of a problem than tion of smart developed by an NREL team simulator’s voltage spiked. had been feared. Winverters led by Brian Johnson, work- They repeated the tests for Persuaded by these tests, can solve some of the prob- ing with Sairaj Dhople of the a range of ratios of solar HECO lifted its morato- lems confronting utilities University of Minnesota; generation to load, from rium on solar systems on like HECO, an even larger Francesco Bullo at the Uni- an even match on up to 10 Oahu in early 2015, pro- issue looms. Today’s power versity of California, Santa times as much power gen- vided that new custom- grids still rely on large, cen- Barbara; and Florian Dörfler eration as load. ers installed one of the tralized power plants with a at ETH Zurich. The results were reas- advanced inverters vetted massive generator rotating The basic idea behind suring: The inverters all by NREL. The utility is now at just the right speed to pro- VOC is to leverage the prop- responded immediately by working with inverter mak- duce power at a certain fre- erties of oscillators—that is, y n

cutting their output, and so ers to certify other models quency—50 cycles per anything that moves in a a p the maximum overvoltage of inverters, using the NREL second in most of the world, periodic fashion, such as a Com c

never exceeded twice the test methods. Separately, 60 cycles per second in the mechanical spring, a met- tri c le E

normal voltage in any test, HECO worked with Enphase United States and parts of ronome, or a motor. When n with the typical overvolt- Energy, of Petaluma, Calif., Asia. These generators col- two oscillators are paired,

age significantly lower. In to remotely reprogram lectively give the entire or coupled, their motions Hawaiia

46 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.SmartSolarInverter.INT - 11.SmartSolarInverter.NA [P]{NA}.indd 46 10/14/16 8:44 AM will naturally align. Picture known as microgrids. A to act in concert to keep the other hand, responds several weights hanging microgrid can be connected the microgrid stable with- immediately to changes in from springs that are con- to the larger utility power out needing any deliber- grid conditions, just as a nected to a rigid and fixed grid, or it can disconnect ate communication among spring responds to any stim- board. As the weights are and operate independently. them or a dedicated super- uli, with minimal need for given a pull to set the springs When isolated from the larger visory control system. The measurements or calcula- bouncing, the springs will grid, the microgrid must gen- team essentially created a tions. The inverters don’t tend to bounce in an unco- erate all of its own electric- self-regulating microgrid. even need to explicitly com- ordinated fashion. How- ity. In this scenario it can be This approach provided a municate with one another. ever, if the board itself is challenging to maintain sta- much faster response than NREL is now testing suspended from the ceil- bility because a microgrid, by the existing mechanism, whether the VOC approach ing on springs, it becomes its very nature, has a much called droop control, for con- could work on utility-scale a feedback mechanism that smaller total load. So the trolling inverters and syn- grids, which connect thou- responds inversely to the sudden addition of a new chronous machines such as sands of homes and busi- pushes and pulls from the load, such as when a large generators. Droop control nesses. For obvious reasons, bouncing weights. Within central air conditioning is based on the idea that the we can’t experiment on a a short period of time, the unit kicks on, can mean a frequency and voltage of a real-world grid, so our test weights will all start bounc- relatively large jump in the single generator varies, or will use a large collection ing at the same frequency, total demand. droops, in proportion to its of residential-scale invert- all in lockstep. To test the VOC approach power output. Droop con- ers and loads connected to For virtual oscillator con- with a microgrid, NREL trol is what allows multiple a simulated grid. The invert- trol, the trick is to make each researchers used a setup generators to be integrated ers and loads will interact inverter respond to the with multiple load types into a system. realistically with this simu- grid much like a spring: If and several types of small But when droop con- lated grid, allowing a range the grid voltage drops, the test inverters that were trol is applied to inverter- of scenarios to determine inverter adjusts its output about the size that might based systems, it requires if the grid voltage and fre- such that it “pushes” against be installed on a PV panel. a control system that first quency stays within the the voltage change. Likewise, The team added the VOC measures the frequency desired range under normal a surge in grid voltage will software to each inverter to and voltage and then cal- operating conditions as well induce an inverter to “pull” allow it to constantly eval- culates the appropriate as disturbances. the voltage back to the nom- uate and respond to local response. These necessary The VOC inverters being inal range. An increase or conditions on the grid. The computations result in a used in the NREL tests have decrease in grid frequency VOC inverters were able sluggish response. VOC, on been custom-built and pro- will similarly cause the grammed, but it should be inverter to adjust its power straightforward to stan- output to compensate. dardize the VOC software VOC is implemented in the so that it can be used in off- software that controls each the-shelf inverters. In our inverter. When VOC-enabled tests, we’ve also shown that inverters are connected VOC inverters are compat- to the grid, the grid itself ible with the droop control acts like that board hung methods currently used in from springs, coupling the large power grids. springlike inverters together. Further into the future, Setting up hundreds or thou- when the world’s power grids sands of such inverters on move away from synchro- the same circuit will cause nous, rotating machinery and them to all work together toward distributed genera- to maintain the system volt- tion controlled by power elec- SMAR TER SOLAR: Inverters convert the age and frequency within an direct current from PV panels to the alternating tronics, VOC may prove one acceptable range. current used by the power grid. Traditional of the best ways to maintain a NREL researchers origi- inverters are designed to shut down when they detect stable grid. That transition is a fault, but newer inverters, like these, can be remotely nally designed VOC to help updated to ride through such disturbances. beginning to look inevitable, ity c stabilize relatively small, iso- and now is the time to start

solar lated electricity networks preparing for it. ■

↗ Post your comments at http://spectrum.ieee.org/smartsolarinverter1116 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | nov 2016 | 47

11.SmartSolarInverter.INT - 11.SmartSolarInverter.NA [P]{NA}.indd 47 10/14/16 8:44 AM Run Silent, Ohio State engineers optimized their bike for one thing: to climb Pikes Peak faster than any other bike, electric or gasoline By philip e. ross

48 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.PikesPeakRace.INT - 11.PikesPeakRace.NA [P]{NA}.indd 48 10/13/16 4:32 PM Run Steep

NOWHERE TO GO BUT UP: Pro rider Rob “The Bullet” Barber [here and opposite, top] makes runs on the grueling Pikes Peak racecourse. The 2016 Ohio State Buckeye Current motorcycle team was led by Aaron Bonnell-Kangas [opposite, in light gray T-shirt and sunglasses]. Next year’s team will be led by Polina Brodsky [opposite, center], who joined years ago as a high school student. The Buckeye Current RW-3 [above] has a 7.7-kilowatt-hour battery pack, which includes 938 cells.

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | nov 2016 | 49

11.PikesPeakRace.INT - 11.PikesPeakRace.NA [P]{NA}.indd 49 10/13/16 4:32 PM hops onto a motorcycle belonging to one of the students—a An hour before the qualifying gasoline-powered Kawasaki—and makes for the starting line. round is no time to blow out “Hope they [the race officials] count it, but it isn’t the team’s bike,” he frets. the power inverter in your The officials do count the bike. So now, all the team has electric racing motorcycle. to do is repair the inverter on the RW-3, run tests on a local track, charge each of the bike’s 938 A123 lithium-ion cells to It’s a Friday morning in June and easily the worst day of capacity, roll the bike to the base of the mountain, and run the year for a score of engineering students from Ohio State the race. They’ve got 40 hours. University, in Columbus. Months of painstaking labor have gone into their all-electric cycle, the Buckeye Current RW-3, tudent project though it is, the Buckeye Current to handle one race and one race only: the Pikes Peak Inter- is regarded as a serious contender. The team has gone national Hill Climb, a motorsports race up Colorado’s iconic far to optimize the bike to put out crazy levels of power, mountain. It towers in the near distance; the students are at S something it has to do for only the 10 minutes it should rock bottom. take to round the course’s 156 hairpin turns while skirting a In the past week, they’ve overcome adversities that include skid into an abyss. Power is everything; energy storage, noth- a burned-out noise maker (to alert pedestrians to the cycle’s ing. If the bike’s batteries die at the summit, the students will silent approach), a wobbly seat, a cooling-system snafu, and happily walk it down. a run-in or three with the powers that be. And now, a dead Sheer performance is no mere ornamental attribute but power inverter. rather the heart of the surging appeal of the electric vehicle— And yet, if panic is breaking out, there’s no sign of it. “This, the feature that shattered the golf-cart image. From zero to too, is fun,” insists team leader Aaron Bonnell-Kangas, speak- fabulous in 3 seconds, promises the dual-motor Ludicrous ing somewhat less animatedly than he usually does. Speed mode in the Tesla Model S P90D. And, like the Buckeye Punching numbers on his smartphone, he tries to raise Current, the Tesla does it all without a gearbox. somebody—anybody—at Tritium, maker of the “This motorcycle is our idea of the perfect bike: inverter, which turns a battery’s direct cur- powerful and nimble,” says Bonnell-Kangas, a rent into the alternating kind that the motor PIECES OF A grad student in electrical engineering. “We DREAM: Bottom, requires. Alas, it’s the wee hours of a Saturday from left: With the want to go up Pikes Peak ahead of the gasoline

morning at Tritium’s headquarters, outside bike’s tail fairing bike. We want to be the best.” p

removed, the silvery rou Brisbane, Australia. The race plays to the strengths of an electric G inverter housing (1) is edia edia So everyone jumps. Off comes the bike’s seat, drivetrain. First, an electric power plant offers andels M visible, and with the R out come its electronic guts, on go the probes inverter removed, the instant-on torque, and that comes in handy on

cooling-fluid lines andels ullivan/ of the circuit testers. But the inverter’s troubles the course’s many switchbacks. Each one of R (2) are exposed. The S avis/ remain obscure. This isn’t a mechanical quirk in them becomes a sort of mini drag race. Second, hen D blue motor-cooling p te

your father’s Ducati; this is a bug hiding some- reservoir (3) perches the EV will be indifferent to the thinning of the S where among scores of chips and thousands above the black air as it makes its circuitous ascent—a rise of cooling pump, which of lines of code. is held by an orange 1.4 kilometers (0.9 mile) over the 20-km course. “It’s talking to us, but it’s not sending a signal bracket (4) above Why not use a compressor to load—or “super- the bike’s rear tire. to the motor,” says Polina Brodsky, a mechani- charge”—the combustion chambers? “It’s hard to right: bottom and A blown fuse was Corey left: bottom and left cal engineering student. “The computer is boot- traced to a board (5) tune a supercharger because the air is so different p right p

ing up, but it’s not doing anything.” in the inverter. The at the base and the summit,” Brodsky explains. o T

; p

Manzanita Micro to ages, With just minutes left before the qualifying This year’s iteration of the bike, the RW-3, uses p

battery charger (6) rou G round is set to begin, Rob “The Bullet” Barber, can provide up to the same frame as last year’s—a Honda sport edia edia M the team’s pro driver, improvises a plan B. He 20 amperes. model but minus the gearbox, engine, and fuel Previous

1 2 3

50 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG photographs by Philip E. Ross

11.PikesPeakRace.INT - 11.PikesPeakRace.NA [P]{NA}.indd 50 10/13/16 4:32 PM battery management system

inverter

motor cooling system

motor

high voltage battery data-logging battery electronics management system pack system

tank. In their place are the green mass of thumb- FAST FORWARD: get the temperature data because the sensor, size batteries that cluster under the seat, all the The Buckeye Current a thermistor, had been out of commission for RW-3 gets its oomph way to the bottom. They weigh 80 kilograms from an Enstroj some time. “It was down on our list of bugs, (176 pounds), hold 7.7 kilowatt-hours—a quar- Emrax motor, which is and other things were more important,” says ter the capacity of the Nissan Leaf and about a rated at 100 kilowatts Bonnell-Kangas, ruefully. (134 horsepower). tenth that of the Tesla Model S—and feed cur- The motor is powered And putting sensors everywhere can increase rent through the Tritium inverter to an Enstroj by 938 A123 lithium- the burden, adding more things that can go Emrax motor, a 40-kilogram whirlwind rated ion cells, each about wrong. There are pressure gauges in the tires, the size of a D battery. at 100 kilowatts (134 horsepower). And the cur- They weigh 80 kilo- flow gauges in the coolant pipes, voltmeters rent comes with a lot of waste heat. grams and can store everywhere, all sending data to a central pro- “There are two cooling loops for the motor 7.7 kilowatt-hours—a cessor between test runs. That way, the team quarter the capacity and the inverter, each with its own radiator and of a Nissan Leaf. can fix glitches on the fly, a skill that comes in pump—each part optimizes at different tem- handy in a competition. peratures,” Bonnell-Kangas says. “A gas bike’s “We put a lot of effort into designing these ing c

a more efficient to cool because when you’re hotter, it’s easier electronic systems” to analyze data, says Sean Harrington, a R to purge heat out,” typically through metal fins surrounding team leader and an electrical engineering major. “We design the cylinder chambers. “That’s why we need water cooling.” with debugging in mind.” The heat problems had actually started a couple of days He who errs last, loses. Here, in design methodology, trial keye Current Current keye c u

B earlier. After a time trial, Barber told the team that the and error is as important as theory, if not more so—a lesson : p o

T engine had gotten a little hot. But the students couldn’t you might not find in the standard engineering curriculum.

4 5 6

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11.PikesPeakRace.INT - 11.PikesPeakRace.NA [P]{NA}.indd 51 10/13/16 4:32 PM COG CUT FINISH LINE 19 14,115 FT SUMMIT started this day at 3:00 in the morning, doing time OLYMPIC trials and tune-ups, well before the onslaught of 18 summer tourists. Now, bellies full, these kids are 13,380 FT BOULDER PARK about to go right into a second day of work back at their rented house in Colorado Springs. 13,060 FT UPPER GRAVEL PIT Or even a third day, maybe. Bonnell-Kangas gets very little shut-eye: He texts me on the coming day’s 17 plans well after I’ve fallen asleep, then does it again at 2:00 a.m., well before I wake up the next morn- 12,760 FT BOTTOMLESS PIT ing. Many hours later, as I stagger off to catch a ride to my hotel, I pass four of the students. It’s early 12,780 FT afternoon, and they’re blowing off steam shooting DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND hoops in the front yard. START OF 4TH LEG 16 Rest? Who needs rest? START OF 2ND LEG The inverter problem defies an easy solution. The RACE TO THE START OF 3RD LEG 15 START OF 1ST LEG CLOUDS: The course Buckeyes can’t buy an inverter locally, and they DOUBLE CUT has many treacherous haven’t the time to airlift one in from the antipo- COVE CREEK GEORGE’S twists and hairpin CORNER des. So there the electrical subteam sits, hunched turns [in purple] RAGGED EDGE and had unpaved 14 11,440 FT around the dining-room table of their rental house, sections until 2012. 13 tearing the broken inverter apart. 11,900 FT ELK PARK GLEN COVE Nevertheless, there SWITCHBACK “The motor is synchronous, which means the have been only five BELOW GLEN COVE fatalities since the inverter has to keep up,” Bonnell-Kangas tells me. race began in 1916. SUMP The rotor of a synchronous motor moves in lock- 12 For the first time ever, TIN BARN step with the rotating magnetic field. That field, an electric car won the race last year, in turn, is generated by output from the inverter, when another electric 10,900 FT SKI AREA GILLY’S which varies in a repeating pattern, or cycle. The CORNER vehicle took second faster the motor turns, the more cycles the inverter place as well. HEITMAN’S HILL GROUSE HILL 11 must provide. But this inverter can crank out no BIG SPRING 11 MILE WATER STATION more than 500 cycles per second—enough to turn BLUE SKY BROWN BUSH CORNER 10,560 FT the motor at 3,000 rpm. That’s the redline. “So we designed a control system to keep the motor GAYLER’S STRAITS below that critical speed,” Bonnell-Kangas says. 10 9,960 FT HALFWAY PICNIC GROUNDS This is why the inverter’s paralysis is such a big 9 deal. As things now stand, the students can’t even 9 MILE ENGINEERS CORNER get the motor to turn at all. And if they can’t fix

HORSESHOE it, then it’s good-bye to a year’s worth of dreams. Just as I begin to head back to my hotel, the prob- HANSEN’S CORNER 8 lem is apparently found: two very well-fried fuses 8 MILE PIT ROAD in the power supply board. They got electrocuted earlier during a tune-up. “We reversed the polarity [the direction of cur- CRYSTAL WORK ROAD rent],” Bonnell-Kangas tells me. “That burned the fuses, and that interrupted the power supply. We can fix this.” And they did. START LINE 9,390 FEET It’s things like these that make you appreciate the sweat that goes into anything complicated: a motorcycle, a car, a jetliner. Fix one thing and you tee up another to fail. Despite the frustrations, pressures, and compro- ow much effort does this extracurricular activity con- mises, they all can’t imagine doing anything else with their sume? In some cases, more time than the coursework. free time. When I ask Marc Ahlborg, an aerospace engineer- Aaronn Sergent, a mechanical engineering major, con- ing major, why he chose this team rather than something H fesses to me that he puts in just 20 or 30 hours a week more aeronautical (surely there’s a drone club?) he notes that on the bike project. He’s almost apologetic as he tells me this he rides a bike himself, as do most team members. Though

outside Uncle Sam’s Pancake House, where the team has just limited, the resources of this club are among the best at Ohio C IH

breakfasted on eggs and pancakes. It’s 8:00 a.m, but the team State, he adds. Most come as in-kind gifts from sponsors. PP

52 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.PikesPeakRace.INT - 11.PikesPeakRace.NA [P]{NA}.indd 52 10/13/16 4:32 PM Take the 100-kW alternator that Cummins Generator Tech- Barber, the guy whose life depends on sticking to that slick nologies provided to them gratis. The team had wanted a road surface, time is passing at a faster clip. smaller one, but apparently Cummins doesn’t do small. “It’s wet up there, really wet,” he says, returning from a But the food bill comes out of the students’ pockets. So does little reconnaissance. the rent for the house, which they split evenly, and the trans- In another hour the sun would burn away that water, but portation. Even bringing their own motorcycles out West is the show must go on, and the electric motorcycles are the first their own burden to bear: Ohio State has a rule against using category to climb the mountain. Barber thinks that sticking school vehicles for private purposes. So while Buckeye C urrent to the schedule is ridiculous: Surely, the famously waterproof and its appurtenances travel in a trailer worthy of a rock star, gasoline-powered bikes should go first, he grouses. Surely, the personal gear mostly goes on the back of a pickup. someone could go up there and sweep away the worst of the Even petty cash is scarce. When Brody Ringler, a mechanical wetness. But there’s no time. engineer, argues that the team needs a $10 infrared thermom- After some hurry-up-and-wait delays, Barber gets the go- eter gun to quickly check the tires and other parts, Bonnell- ahead. He turns on the clanging noise maker, scoots off to Kangas mulls it over for a good 3 seconds: “Okay, buy it.” the starting line, and promptly enters radio silence as the pit On Friday afternoon, when the students figure out the invert- team unexpectedly loses contact with the bike’s transpon- er’s problem and replace the blown fuses, I ask Bonnell-Kangas der. Now the team must follow his progress fitfully, through what he’d have done that morning if he’d gotten through to a handful of visual sightings. the Aussie company. Would he have maxed out his credit After an eternity, the news comes succinctly. “Our time is card to pay the AU $6,000 (US $4,592) for a new Tritium 11:16,” says Brodsky, her ear pressed to a phone. WaveSculptor200 inverter, plus the whatever-it-would-cost No 10-minute race record this time, or victory of any kind. to fly it the 14,000 km from Australia to Colorado Springs? Ringler is plainly crushed. Brodsky says nothing. Bonnell-Kangas “I’d have paid it,” he says. conceals his disappointment. This was his last hurrah as team leader; now he’ll take up his first job, a research position at the a tce day s arts at the wretched hour of 1:30 a.m. Say- Detroit branch of Robert Bosch, the German auto supplier. ing little, we drive in darkness, the mountain a huge Hours later, after all the races are run and Barber can finally black hulk in the distance. walk the bike down, he is ebullient. Or maybe he’s just glad R Poking along the final stretch, we jostle along with to be alive. vehicles from every category of racing—production cars, vin- “You guys were great,” he says. “It’s as good as last year’s tage cars, modified cars, dune buggies, trucks (even a semi), time, and on a wet road. And the bike was great.” and of course, motorcycles of various weights, power sources, He’s a pro. And so, literally, were the guys who won the and designs. It’s a surreal outdoor museum of automotive category. oddities, “Jay Leno’s Garage” taking a run on the wild side. “The Victory bike was just so powerful,” Barber says later, There are even low-riding buglike affairs with a sidecar, in while sitting on a couch back at the rented house. He was which a passenger, called the monkey, kneels in order to hang referring to an electric version of a bike made by Victory and off the side as a counterweight in a tight turn. (It’s a living.) ridden by Dan Canet. It posted a 10:17.8 time, about a minute The team pitches a tent in the pit area, turns on the genera- faster than the Buckeye Current. tor, powers up the fluorescent lights, puts the bike up on stilts, “I don’t know how they do it; Victory is very quiet about the applies the blue Chicken Hawk electric tire warmers. They design,” says Barber. When he isn’t racing, he works a day job matter because the tires are racing slicks, so-called for their in IT for Cisco Systems, in Manchester, England. lack of treads, and they provide traction only when warm. They cool down fast in this chill air and on the frigid sur- a vid did not beat Goliath, not this year. But maybe faces; all around, the mountain walls are pocked with snow. next year the team will build an automatic battery- While warming the tires, the team checks the bike’s major charging system. Maybe they’ll revamp the power systems and tops off the charge in each of the myriad battery D management system, inverter included. Or they could cells. You have to do that just so, filling up one battery to a cer- follow the lead of vehicle manufacturers worldwide and pare tain point, then catching up the others, then doing it again. It’s weight from the bike. the only way you can be sure not to overcharge any of them. “I can’t say what we might do,” says Brodsky, diplomatically. Well, that’s not quite true: You could design an automatic “We’ll decide these things together, after looking at the data charging system, as the Victory Motorcycles team has no logs from today.” doubt done. They’re not far away, in the stretch that leads Brodsky, alone among the students, was present at the cre- toward the burrito shack, and they are an actual company, ation. That was six years ago, when as a senior in high school based in Iowa. All they do is make motorcycles. she wangled her way into a new and decidedly bare-bones Hand charging is tedious. But then what would you do operation. Now she has graduated. Next year she’ll stay on early on race day? The last few hours before the race seem to as a grad student—on a mission. crawl, like in the old movies when the defense attorney and “I’m the team leader next year,” she says. “The rest of the the defendant wait—and wait—as the jury deliberates. But for team voted me in.” n

↗ Post your comments at http://spectrum.ieee.org/pikespeakrace1116 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | nov 2016 | 53

11.PikesPeakRace.INT - 11.PikesPeakRace.NA [P]{NA}.indd 53 10/13/16 4:32 PM SocialSocial MeMeddia’ia’ss Bulletin-board systems built by hobbyists taught people how to interact online • By Kevin Driscoll oes here oes g PIONEERS OF CYBERSPACE: Welcome screens from various computer bulletin-board systems show their operators’ wild creativity. Gutter credit credit Gutter

54 | nov 2016 | North American

11.ComputerBBSes.INT - 11.ComputerBBBes.NA [P]{NA}.indd 54 10/13/16 4:22 PM DDial-upial-up RootRootss Bulletin-board systems built by hobbyists taught people how to interact online • By Kevin Driscoll

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | nov 2016 | 55

11.ComputerBBSes.INT - 11.ComputerBBBes.NA [P]{NA}.indd 55 10/13/16 4:22 PM be paved over in the construction of today’s information For millions of people superhighway. So it takes some digging to reveal what around the globe, came before.

the Internet is a simple fact of life. We How did it all start? During the snowy winter of take for granted the invisible network 1978, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, members of the that enables us to communicate, navigate, Chicago Area Computer Hobbyist’s Exchange (CACHE), began investigate, flirt, shop, and play. Early on, to assemble what would become the best known of the first small-scale BBSs. Members of CACHE were passionate about this network-of-networks connected only microcomputers, at the time an arcane endeavor, and so the select companies and university campuses. club’s newsletters were an invaluable source of information. Nowadays, it follows almost all of us into Christensen and Suess’s novel idea was to put together an the most intimate areas of our lives. And online archive of club newsletters using a custom-built micro- yet, very few people know how the Internet computer and a hot new Hayes modem they had acquired. This modem included an auto-answer feature, to which ¶ became social. Perhaps that’s because Christensen and Suess added a custom hardware interface most histories of the Internet focus on between the modem and the hard-reset switch. Every time the technical innovations: packet switching, telephone rang, the modem would detect the incoming call dynamic routing, addressing, and hypertext, and then “cold boot” their system directly into a special host for example. But when anyone other program written in Intel 8080 assembly language. Restart- ing the system with every call offered a blunt but effective than a network engineer talks about the means of recovering from hardware and software crashes— Internet, he or she is rarely thinking about a common occurrence on home-brew hardware of the time. such things. For most folks, the Internet is Once a connection was established, the host program wel- principally a medium through which we comed users to the system, provided a list of articles to read, and invited them to leave messages. Christensen and Suess chat with friends, share pictures, read the dubbed the system “Ward and Randy’s Computerized Bul- news, and do our shopping. Indeed, for those letin Board System,” or CBBS. It was, as the name suggested, who’ve been online only for the last decade an electronic version of the community bulletin boards that or so, the Internet is just social media’s you still see in libraries, supermarkets, cafés, and churches. plumbing—a vital infrastructure that we Anyone with access to a teletype or video terminal could dial into CBBS. And after a few months, a small but lively com- don’t think much about, except perhaps munity began to form around the system. In the hobbyist tra- when it breaks down. ¶ To understand how dition of sharing information, Christensen and Suess wrote the Internet became a medium for social up a report about their project titled “Hobbyist Computer- life, you have to widen your view beyond ized Bulletin Board,” which appeared in the November 1978 issue of the influential computer magazineByte . networking technology and peer into the The article provided details about the hardware they used makeshift laboratories of microcomputer and how they organized and implemented their software. The hobbyists of the 1970s and 1980s. That’s authors even included their phone numbers and invited read- where many of the technical structures and ers to take CBBS for a spin. Acknowledging the experimental cultural practices that we now recognize nature of the system, they encouraged readers to “feel free to hang up and try several times if you have problems.” After the as social media were first developed by issue hit newsstands, calls to their computer started pouring in. amateurs tinkering in their free time to build Over the next few years, hundreds of small-scale systems cott systems for computer-mediated collaboration like CBBS popped up around the country. Perhaps inspired S Jason Jason

by the Byte article, many of these new systems were orga- / s

and communication. ¶ For years before S the Internet became accessible to the nized by local computer clubs. In 1983, TAB Books, publisher of numerous DIY electronics guides, published How to C reate riginal BB riginal general public, these pioneering computer Your Own Computer Bulletin Board, by Lary L. Myers. In addi- O enthusiasts chatted and exchanged files with tion to explaining the concept and motivation behind online one another using homespun “bulletin-board services, Myers’s book included complete source code in the systems” or BBSs, which later linked a more BASIC programming language for host software. The back of the book also listed the telephone numbers of more than diverse group of people and covered a wider 275 public bulletin-board systems in 43 U.S. states. Some range of interests and communities. These charged a nominal membership fee, while most were free to

BBS operators blazed trails that would later use. The roots of social media were beginning to take hold. screens: Welcome Pages, Previous

56 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11.ComputerBBSes.INT - 11.ComputerBBBes.NA [P]{NA}.indd 56 10/13/16 4:22 PM In retrospect, 1983 proved to be a critical year Dai l Me In: bill was considered a rite of passage. To avoid [Clockwise from for popular computing. In France, the state- top left] Stacy Horn long-distance calling altogether, more seasoned sponsored Minitel system completed its first full ran the Echo BBS in users restricted their online activity to nearby year of operation in Paris, making online news, New York City; Sister systems that could be reached toll free. Mary Elizabeth shopping, and chat accessible to every citizen Clark ran the AIDS The local nature of BBSing meant that users in that city. In the United States, novel commer- Education General could reasonably assume that the people they cial systems gained traction, with CompuServe Information System; met online lived nearby. Even though many

imes/ CompuServe served T reporting more than 50,000 paying subscribers. up news; Matthew BBSs encouraged the use of pseudonyms, or Even Hollywood took interest in cyberspace. Broderick and Ally “handles,” it was entirely possible that the per- ngeles ngeles A The 1983 movie WarGames, featuring a teenage Sheedy starred in son you were chatting with online tonight could os os

L WarGames; Minitel hacker who explored remote computer net- be bagging your groceries or coaching your mages mages

I provided online

rieser/ works from his bedroom, became an unlikely access in France. daughter’s soccer team tomorrow. G

ett b G

is/ box-office smash. Although the IMSAI micro- Many BBS administrators, or “sysops,” rein- b

or computer and acoustic-coupler modem depicted forced this sense of community by hosting reg- C edux; Bo edux; R in the movie once cost as much as a cheap used car, curious ular in-person get-togethers, often at local parks or favorite imes/ T ranken/

F computer users inspired by the film could buy serviceable watering holes. Online disagreements—flame wars—could be en en

York alternatives at the nearest Radio Shack for roughly the cost kept in check as well, because the cost of being a jerk escalated Ow w

; e y N of a good-quality hi-fi stereo. And as the decade progressed, with the likelihood of later seeing your interlocutor face to face. lam he he T A the online universe expanded rapidly from its original core of Another key distinction between the dial-up BBSs of the

strin/ microcomputer hobbyists to encompass a much wider group. early 1980s and the social media services we use today is that, E rchive/ A for the most part, each BBS was a world unto itself, whirring nited nited : James James :

U Early dial-up BBSs were mostly local affairs. And no away in blithe isolation from all others. Over time, each sys- left

p wonder: In the early 1980s, most Americans paid a flat monthly tem developed its own idiosyncratic personality. One might P Photo; Photo; P

A fee for unlimited local phone calls, but calls to another city focus on trading shareware games, another on arguing poli- or state were billed according to duration, distance, and time tics, and a third on talking about TV shows. ise from to from ise mages; mages; I w

y of day. Even calls within the same state could be quite costly. Experienced BBS users would visit the various systems in ett lock G C For tenderfoot BBS users, running up a monstrous phone their areas, maintaining a separate profile on each one. In

↗ Post your comments at http://spectrum.ieee.org/bbshistory1116 SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | North American | nov 2016 | 57

11.ComputerBBSes.INT - 11.ComputerBBBes.NA [P]{NA}.indd 57 10/13/16 4:22 PM big metro areas like Atlanta, Minneapolis, world. Newcomers later added other features or Houston, there might be a dozen or more and capabilities. local BBSs to tap. But folks in less populated In 1986, Jeff Rush, a BBS operator in Dallas, areas were seldom so lucky. Rural users with created a conferencing mechanism for FidoNet. particularly narrow interests—say, collecting Rush’s system, dubbed Echomail, worked sim- antique clocks—may have had only one or ilarly to the forums on CompuServe or the two other people nearby to chat with. They newsgroups on Usenet: You could post a com- longed for more. ment, and anyone on the network could reply To overcome the economic cost of long- to it. But participation in those earlier forums distance calling and the social cost of isolation, required either a costly monthly subscription BBS operators needed to find a way to inter- or access to a public Unix system, whereas connect their systems, to create a network of anyone with a PC and a modem could access BBS networks—a people’s Internet. Christensen FidoNet’s E chomail. As a result, Echomail and Suess had floated the idea of a network of became hugely popular and was particularly BBSs in the conclusion of their 1978 Byte article, useful for people living in rural areas or those but it was fellow amateur Tom Jennings who with niche interests. For the first time, the designed a real inter-network of BBSs. whole population of BBS users could engage In 1984, Jennings was distributing free of in discussion together. charge from his home in the San Francisco Beyond the United States, BBSs seemed to Bay Area a BBS host program for Microsoft’s spring up anywhere that a microcomputer operating system, MS-DOS. He called the pro- could be connected to a telephone line. In gram Fido. The popularity of the Fido BBS 1987, Pablo Kleinman, a sysop in Buenos Aires, grew alongside that of MS-DOS, and soon helped to connect the first four FidoNet nodes there were a dozen or more BBS systems in Argentina, and a year later, Juan Dávila, a running the program. sysop in Puerto Rico, announced the creation On a lark, Jennings added an experimen- of Latino Net, a Spanish-language conference. tal feature to his software that enabled two Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union Fido BBSs to call each other automatically and in 1991, a FidoNet user based in the United exchange data. After a coast-to-coast test with States circulated technical information about John Madill, a Fido BBS operator in Baltimore, reading and writing Cyrillic messages and Jennings organized the first network of BBSs encouraged fellow FidoNet enthusiasts to and called it FidoNet. Within a decade, FidoNet reach out to the “overwhelming” number of grew into a massive 20,000-node network Russian users joining the network. reaching users as far away as South Africa and By 1993, Randy Bush, a long-time advocate

New Zealand. Unlike with today’s Internet, Hall of Famers: of FidoNet in the developing world, estimated machines on this network would typically In the 1970s and 1980s, that 59 percent of the nodes were located store data for many hours before forwarding it Ward Christensen [top], in North America, 30 percent in Europe, Randy Suess [middle], on to its destination. But FidoNet nevertheless and Tom Jennings 4 percent in Australia and New Zealand, functioned as a valuable global data network. [bottom] helped to pioneer with the remaining 7 percent split among The early versions of FidoNet included a the then-new online world. Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The A frican Christensen and Suess number of clever design decisions that facili- developed “Ward and systems may have been small relative to the tated the rapid growth of the network. From Randy’s Computerized whole network, but these small networks the start, for example, Jennings encouraged Bulletin Board System,” could have an outsize impact for local users. In and Jennings later collaboration by publishing technical docu- created FidoNet. some regions of Africa, noted Bush, a FidoNet mentation on FidoNet’s protocols and file gateway provided an important means for formats. As a result, support for FidoNet was poorly funded academics and NGO staffers to added to other BBS-software packages and soon became a keep up to date with the latest research and news from abroad. de facto standard for building such networks. The growth of FidoNet during the 1980s was part of a larger Because FidoNet was run primarily by hobbyists, it was movement toward greater connectivity among computer designed to keep costs down. Exchanges between nodes nor- networks. Those interconnections were made using spe- cott mally took place in the middle of the night, when long-distance cial gateways that translated messages between otherwise S phone rates were lowest. This interval, during which many incompatible networks. In 1986, the administrators of several hs: Jason Jason hs:

BBSs refused to answer calls from users, became known to institutional Unix systems opened gateways to nearby BBSs, p insiders as “national mail hour.” thereby enabling the exchange of messages among users of Initially, FidoNet provided only inter-BBS email services. FidoNet, Usenet, and the nascent Internet. Indeed, several But FidoNet allowed BBS users to imagine themselves con- Usenet newsgroups began as automatically created copies of riginal Photogra riginal

tributing to a vast conversation with people from all over the material posted in popular FidoNet Echomail conferences. O

58 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG illustrations by QuickHoney

11.ComputerBBSes.INT - 11.ComputerBBBes.NA [P]{NA}.indd 58 10/13/16 4:22 PM It’s tempting to imagine that these gateways introduced BBS users to the Internet. But the Internet at that point held no particular appeal for most BBS users, who were already enmeshed in New Version! their own lively online worlds. The early Internet was limited to people with access to a large university or research center, whereas BBSs were open to anyone. As a result, they could be wacky and weird— independent free agents in cyberspace. Indeed, it may be more accurate to say that gateways exposed the relatively staid Internet to the wild ways of BBSers.

As the 1980s passed into the 1990s, falling prices for computers as well as the availability of used PCs allowed many more people to start using the technology. Modems also shifted from an expensive option to a standard component on new PCs. As these barriers to participation fell, a wave of new recruits came online, and the culture of BBSing began to reflect their more diverse interests. Teens, educators, art- ists, and entrepreneurs joined the growing population of BBS hosts and users. Hundreds of BBSs appeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s to serve particular communities and interests. The Batboard in Columbia, Mo., was dedicated to all things B atman, for example, while the Complete Baseball BBS in Cambridge, Mass., featured a different sort of bat. Followers of the Grateful Dead (“deadheads”) arranged tape trades and carpooling on the WELL in Sausalito, Calif., and hard-core gamers exchanged homemade Doom levels on Software Cre- ations in Clinton, Mass. The Back Door in San Francisco supported a lively LGBT community, while the Backdraft in Key Largo, Fla., provided a meeting place for firefighters. The Christian-themed Winplus in Kent, Wash., and the pagan- oriented Brewer’s Witch in Houston were both well known for their friendly off-line Over 100 New Features & Apps in Origin 2017! get-togethers, while DharmaNet linked For a FREE 60-day Over 500,000 registered users worldwide in: evaluation, go to up hundreds of Buddhist BBSs. ◾ 6,000+ Companies including 20+ Fortune Global 500 OriginLab.Com/demo Free from the staggering size and profit ◾ 6,500+ Colleges & Universities and enter code: 8547 imperative of commercial services, such ◾ 3,000+ Government Agencies & Research Labs small-scale community-oriented BBSs were sites of experimentation. Given the preponderance of men in the early BBS culture, many sysops endeavored to cre- 25+ years serving the scientific & engineering community ate welcoming environments for the rel-

11.ComputerBBSes.INT - 11.ComputerBBBes.NA [P]{NA}.indd 59 10/13/16 4:22 PM IEEE IN 2030 CHALLENGE atively few women who called in. Stacy at one time or another between 1978 Horn, proprietor of the long-running Echo and 2004. And yet, in spite of their wide- BBS in New York City, was especially tena- ranging scale, geographic reach, and cious in her appeals to women, offering cultural influence, BBSs seem to be all new female users 12 months of free ser- but forgotten today. Why? vice and women-only online conferences. Part of the reason is their swift demise. “I thought it would be a cooler place if there With the commercialization of the Inter- were women there,” she remarked in an net in the mid-1990s, thousands of BBSs interview from 1996. “Who cares to talk seemed to vanish almost overnight. to 20-year-old white guys all the time?” Some attempted to move, wholesale, Unlike with social-media services today, to Usenet or the World Wide Web, while it was common for small-scale BBSs to vet others simply pulled the plug and turned new users before granting them full access. off the lights. The TARDIS BBS in Indiana, for example, But a curious thing happened along the verified all of its users with a voice tele- way to oblivion: Thousands of BBSs qui- phone call. Users claiming to be women etly metamorphosed into Internet Ser- were invited into the “Ladies Only” sec- vice Providers, or ISPs. In December 1995, tions of the board only after being cleared Jack Rickard, editor of Boardwatch maga- by one of its female moderators. Even the zine, noted that the available statistics on board’s male founder, Tom O’Nan, was Internet usage didn’t add up: The major shut out. “To this day,” he recently joked, ISPs, like UUNET, N etcom, PSINet, and “I don’t know what went on in that room!” InternetMCI, were not reporting enough For communities in crisis, a BBS could subscribers to account for the total num- be an important hub for sharing informa- ber of active users online. tion. At the outset of the AIDS epidemic, Using a database compiled by his mag- as thousands were dying amid media azine, Rickard estimated that more than SEED GRANT coverage that was mostly suspicious or 95 percent of the 3,240 ISPs created in hostile, BBSs provided an invaluable the previous two years were former BBSs SEEKS NEXT source of health information and social operating under new names. The same support. Between 1985 and 1993, more telephone lines and modems that once BIG IDEA than 100 computer bulletin boards were connected local callers to one another set up to share information regarding were now being used to provide direct IEEE is looking for ways to HIV and AIDS. connections to the global Internet. The deliver value to engineers One cornerstone in this network was dial‑up BBSs were bulldozed, it seems, and technology professionals the AIDS Education General Informa- to build Internet on-ramps. working in industry. That’s tion System (AEGIS) operated by Sister For Internet users today, there is more why we created the IEEE in Mary Elizabeth Clark out of her home to the BBS story than mere nostalgia. As 2030 Challenge. in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. Each day, our online lives are channeled through Clark searched medical databases for an ever-smaller number of service pro- We’re looking to fund short the latest research about treatment and viders, reflecting on the long-forgotten term projects–12 month or prevention and then used FidoNet to cir- dial-up era can open our eyes to the less and up to $40,000– to culate this information to BBSs in more value of diversity and local control. support innovative, creative, than 40 countries throughout North After all, people often get frustrated and potentially disruptive America, Europe, and Africa. Meanwhile, that today’s social-media platforms can’t ideas to better serve the the United Methodist Church’s Comput- deal with small-scale disputes or apply needs of professionals erized AIDS Ministries Network (CAM) different policies to different constit- working in industry. in New York City helped combat the iso- uencies. BBS users of the past could lation faced by many people affected by complain directly to the sysop—maybe Visit the crisis, by answering visitors’ ques- even with a phone call—and he or she could act immediately and unilaterally ieee.org/2030challenge tions and generally providing support. on their behalf. Try that with Twitter for all the details and deadlines. For two decades, bulletin- or Facebook. You’ll gain a much bet- board systems provided countless peo- ter appreciation for the systems often ple with an accessible platform for online running on little more than solder, duct community. Jason Scott, director of BBS: tape, and a dream that first enabled reg- The Documentary, estimates that there ular people to connect with one another were at least 106,418 BBSs in operation through their computers. n

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62 | Nov 2016 | north american | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11a.CyberSupplement.NA [P] [P].indd 62 10/13/16 3:57 PM Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Cybersecurity Spotlight Spotlight Cybersecurity Cybersecurity Spotlight Spotlight CybersecurityCybersecurity SpotlightSpotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotli Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurityght Cybersecurity Spotlight SpotlightCybersecurity Cybersecurity Spotlight SpotlightCybersecurity Cybersecurity Spotli Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotli ght Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurityght Cybersecurity Spotlight SpotlightCybersecurity Cybersecurity SpotlightCyberSe SpotlightCybersecuritycurity Cybersecurity SpotliSpotlight Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight ght Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight Cybersecurity Spotlight

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SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | north american | Nov 2016 | 63

11a.CyberSupplement.NA [P] [P].indd 63 10/13/16 3:57 PM Two Tenure-Track, Tenured Faculty Positions Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Queen’s University at Kingston The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at Queen’s University invites applications for two Tenure-track or Tenured faculty positions with a specialization in the field of Computer Engineering Software, with priority areas in Software Engineering, Machine Faculty Position Learning, Autonomous and Intelligent Systems, Data Analytics and Big Data, and Mechatronics The Electrical and Computer Engineering and will also consider exceptional candidates in other fields of Computer Engineering Software. Department of Baylor University seeks Preference will be given to candidates at the rank of Assistant professor; however, exceptional faculty applicants for a Lecturer or a Senior candidates at the rank of Associate Professor may also be considered Lecturer Position. Any area of expertise in The successful candidates must have a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering or a related ECE will be considered but applicants in discipline completed at the start date of the appointment. Licensure as a Professional Engineer in computer engineering will be given special Canada, or eligibility to acquire licensure in Canada, is an essential requirement. Postdoctoral or consideration. Applicants must demonstrate industrial experience will be considered an asset. potential for excellent teaching; applicants for Senior Lecturer must additionally Queen’s University is one of Canada’s leading research-intensive universities with a global present evidence of achievement in teaching reputation and a recognized leader in Canadian higher education. The Department of Electrical commensurate with the desired rank. The ECE and Computer Engineering is medium-sized with 23 full-time and 12 cross-appointed faculty, department offers B.S., M.S., M.E. and Ph.D. 470 undergraduate students, and 170 graduate students. The department offers undergraduate, degrees and is rapidly expanding its faculty master’s, and doctoral programs in electrical and computer engineering and has recently launched size. Facilities include the Baylor Research a unique entrepreneurial engineering program referred to as ECE Innovation Stream, ECEi. and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC), a newly- The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is home to Queen’s Centre for Energy and established research park minutes from the Power Electronics Research (ePOWER) and has connections to a number of multi-disciplinary main campus. centres such as: Canadian Microelectronics Corporation (CMC), Human Mobility Research Centre, Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas, Green Centre Canada, Innovation Park, and Queen’s Innovation Connector. Baylor University is the oldest university Queen’s historic campus is located in the heart of the vibrant Kingston community in the Thousand in Texas. Baylor has an enrollment of over Islands region of South Eastern Ontario. Queen’s is positioned centrally with respect to three major 15,000 students and is a member of the Big metropolitan areas: Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. XII Conference. Baylor’s mission is to educate men and women for worldwide leadership The full posting, including additional information and the requirements for submitting an application and service by integrating academic is available at http://my.ece.queensu.ca/About-Us/Employment.html. Inquiries can be sent to ece- excellence and Christian commitment within [email protected] . The deadline for applications is December 31, 2016; however, applications a caring community. The department seeks will continue to be reviewed until the position has been filled. to hire faculty with an active Christian faith; applicants are encouraged to read about Baylor’s vision for the integration of faith and learning at www.baylor.edu/profuturis/. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the January 1, 2017 deadline. Applications must include: 1) a letter of interest that identifies the applicant’s anticipated rank, 2) a complete CV, Frontier Faculty 3) a concise statement of teaching interests, The College of Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University announces openings for two 4) the names and contact information for at tenure-system Frontier Faculty positions in, but not restricted to, the areas of Optimal and Secure least four professional references. Cyberenvironments (e.g. cybersecurity, cyberphysical engineering and healthcare systems, cultural technical system integration), Resilient Infrastructure Systems (e.g., autonomous, optimized and Additional information is available at www. adaptive systems; advanced land, air and sea vehicles) and Sustainable Water-Energy-Food Nexus ecs.baylor.edu. Should you have any (e.g., modeling, optimization and management of interacting water-energy-food systems; optimized questions on the position, feel free to and socially responsible energy, water and food production and distribution). Senior and mid-career contact the search chair, Dr. Keith Schubert faculty as well as exceptional junior faculty in emerging areas in engineering are invited to apply. This at [email protected]. Please Frontier Faculty search is being conducted at the College of Engineering level and is led by the Dean’s submit materials to https://apply.interfolio. office. The academic home of the successful candidates will be determined during the hiring process. com/38070. Additional information about these positions and the College’s plan for growth may be found at www. Baylor University is a private not-for-profit engr.psu.edu/frontier. Review of applicants will begin on November 15, and will continue until the positions university affiliated with the Baptist General are filled. Applicants should submit a statement of professional interests, a curriculum vitae, and Convention of Texas. As an Affirmative contact information for four references. Please submit these items in one pdf file. Action/Equal Opportunity employer, Baylor is committed to compliance with all applicable Apply to http://apptrkr.com/882105 anti-discrimination laws, including those regarding age, race, color, sex, national origin, CAMPUS SECURITY CRIME STATISTICS: For more about safety at Penn State, and to review the marital status, pregnancy status, military Annual Security Report which contains information about crime statistics and other safety and service, genetic information, and disability. As security matters, please go to http://www.police.psu.edu/clery/, which will also provide you with a religious educational institution, Baylor is detail on how to request a hard copy of the Annual Security Report. lawfully permitted to consider an applicant’s religion as a selection criterion. Baylor Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment encourages women, minorities, veterans and opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, individuals with disabilities to apply. gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.

64 | Nov 2016 | north american | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11a.p64.NA [P].indd 64 10/11/16 8:57 AM The Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Division of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor invites applications for junior or senior Tenure Track Faculty Positions in Biomedical Engineering faculty positions, especially from women and underrepresented minorities. Successful candidates will have a relevant doctorate or Biomedical Engineering (BME) is among the most dynamic, multidisciplinary, and rapidly evolving areas that plays a significant role in equivalent experience and an outstanding record of achievement expanding the capabilities of healthcare and the ways it will be delivered and impactful research in academics, industry, and/or at national in the future. The BME program at Ryerson University is housed in, and laboratories. They will have a strong record or commitment to administrated by, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels, to providing service and is exhibiting continued growth. Ryerson’s B.Eng. BME program was the first and only standalone undergraduate Biomedical Engineering program to the university and profession, and to broadening the intellectual in English Canada at the time of its inception in 2008, and remains the first diversity of the ECE Division. The division invites candidates across all one to be fully accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board. research areas relevant to ECE to apply. Being housed in a strategic downtown campus at Ryerson University, located in the heart of Downtown Toronto, the largest and most culturally The highly ranked ECE Division (www.ece.umich.edu) prides itself on diverse city in Canada, the BME program benefits from the proximity to the mentoring of junior faculty toward successful careers. Ann Arbor is Toronto’s Medical Discovery District and seven world-class hospitals. often rated as a family friendly best-place-to-live. Position Requirements Please see application instructions at www.eecs.umich.edu/ eecs/jobs The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science at Ryerson University invites Applications will be considered as they are received. However, for full applications for THREE (3) full-time tenure track positions in Biomedical Engineering, at the Assistant Professor level, beginning July 1, 2017, consideration applications must be received by December 9, 2016. subject to final budgetary approval. Candidates must have a Ph.D. degree in The University of Michigan is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Biomedical Engineering (with Electrical Engineering focus) or Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering (with Biomedical Engineering focus) or Ph.D. Employer with an Active Dual-Career Assistance Program. The College of degree in related disciplines. In addition, the following are expectations of Engineering is especially interested in candidates who contribute, through an ideal candidate for the position: their research, teaching, and/or service, to the diversity and excellence of the • Demonstrate expertise in one or more of the following areas of academic community. BME specializations: Biorobotics, Bioinformatics, Medical Devices, Physiological Modeling, Medical Imaging Instrumentation; • Demonstrate strong experience in undergraduate course development and teaching. Ability to effectively teach key fundamental and applied BME program courses up to 3rd year; • Strong BME research profile with evidence of peer reviewed publications/ contributions and external grants (and/or participation in group grants and/or ability to attract multi-center grants). Ability to establish and maintain an independent, externally funded research program; • Evidence of Clinical/Health research collaborations or strong potential/ ability to attract Clinical/Health collaborative initiatives; • Evidence of strong undergraduate guidance in Design and Innovation Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of (Industrial experience or previous experience of guiding students and researchers will be a definite asset); Minnesota – Twin Cities, invites applications for faculty • Demonstrated (or the ability to participate in) leadership activities in positions in (1) Control systems, (2) Power and energy collegial internal & external service. systems, (3) Communications and signal processing, Candidates must have a demonstrated commitment to upholding the values of equity, diversity, and inclusion as it pertains to service, teaching, and (4) Embedded systems, robotics and automation, and scholarly, research or creative activities. Professional Engineering as part of the MnDRIVE Initiative (https://mndrive. (P.Eng.) registration (or eligibility to register) is a necessary condition for the appointment. umn.edu/robotics). The Department of Electrical and The review of applications will begin January 1, 2017. Applications will be Computer Engineering is fully committed to a culturally accepted until the positions are filled. and academically diverse faculty; candidates who will For further details and to apply, please go to: further expand that diversity are particularly encouraged http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/jobs.html to apply. An earned doctorate in an appropriate discipline Ryerson University is strongly committed to fostering diversity within our community. We welcome those who would contribute to the further is required. Rank and salary will be commensurate with diversification of our staff, our faculty and its scholarship including, but qualifications and experience. Positions are open until not limited to, women, visible minorities, Aboriginal people, persons with disabilities, and persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity. Please filled, but for full consideration, apply at http://z.umn. note that all qualified candidates are encouraged to apply but applications edu/ecejobs by December 15, 2016. The University of from Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority. Please CLEARLY indicate in your application if you are a Canadian Citizen or a Minnesota is an equal opportunity employer and educator. permanent resident of Canada

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | north american | Nov 2016 | 65

11a.p65.NA [P].indd 65 10/11/16 8:59 AM

Open Rank Faculty Position in the Department of Electrical Engineering Columbia Engineering is pleased to invite applications for faculty positions in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in the City of New York City. Applications at the assistant professor, and in exceptional cases, at the associate professor and full professor levels, will be considered. Applications are specifically sought in any of the areas that fall under the umbrella of electrical engineering, with particular emphasis on, but not limited to information theory and signal processing with novel applications in data science. Candidates must have a Ph.D. or its professional equivalent by the starting date of the appointment. Applicants for this position at the Assistant Professor and Associate Professors without tenure must demonstrate the potential to do pioneering research and to teach effectively. Applicants for this position at the tenured level (Associate or Full Professor) must have a demonstrated record of outstanding research accomplishments, excellent teaching credentials and established leadership in the field. The successful candidate is expected to contribute to the advancement of their field and the department by developing an original and leading externally funded research program, and to contribute to the undergraduate and graduate educational mission of the Department. Columbia fosters multidisciplinary research and encourages collaborations with academic departments and units across Columbia University. The Department is especially interested in qualified candidates who can contribute, through their research, teaching, and/or service, to the diversity and excellence of the academic community. For additional information and to apply, please see: http://engineering.columbia.edu/faculty-job-opportunities. Applications should be submitted electronically and include the following: curriculum-vitae including a publication list, a description of research accomplishments, a statement of research and teaching interests and plans, contact information for three experts who can provide letters of recommendation, and up to three pre/reprints of scholarly work. All applications received by December 1st, 2016 will receive full consideration.Applicants can consult http://www.ee.columbia.edu for more information about the department. Columbia is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer with a strong commitment to the quality of faculty life.

Rochester Institute of Technology Instructional Faculty Requisition Number: 2738BR Faculty Type (Tenure Status): Tenure-Track Department Chair, Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Rank: Assistant Professor Employment Category: Full time The P.C. Rossin College of Engineering & Applied Science at Lehigh University Anticipated Start Date: 16-Aug-2017 invites nominations and applications for the position of Chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Successful candidate will provide Required Minimum Qualifications: leadership to the department, recruit and mentor new faculty, work with related * Applicants must have a PhD. degree in Computer Engineering departments in the university, promote partnerships with industry, further or closely related discipline by the time of hire. strengthen teaching and curriculum, and foster relationships with alumni. * Expertise in the areas of Digital IC Design, Embedded Systems Computer Security, Machine Intelligence, High Performance Lehigh is investing more than $250M on new research and academic programs Computing, or other closely related research areas. to enhance its intellectual footprint based on faculty-driven initiatives. ECE * Ability to teach Computer Engineering core courses and department offers B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in EE and CE. Research areas communicate effectively. include: bio-electrical engineering, computer engineering, communications & * Strong publication record and potential to establish and signal processing, electronics & photonics, and energy systems. conduct sponsored research. Candidates should have a Ph.D. in EE or related field and a distinguished record of research scholarship; qualify for rank of Full Professor R&P Tenured at Appointment; Required Minimum Education Level: PhD and demonstrated visionary leadership, strong interpersonal skills, and a commitment to continued excellence in research, education and fostering diversity. Required Application Documents: * Curriculum Vitae or Resume Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position * Cover Letter is filled. For full consideration, applications must be received on-line at https:// * Research Statement academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/8176 by November 30, 2016. Candidates * List of References should provide CV and letter of application that addresses leadership * Statement of Teaching Philosophy responsibilities and requirements, and the names and contact information of five references. Inquiries can be directed to [email protected]. How To Apply: For full details and to apply visit: http://apptrkr.com/885408 Applications & nominations from female and minority candidates are strongly encouraged. Lehigh University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer You can contact the search committee with questions on the and provides competitive salaries and comprehensive benefits. position at: [email protected].

66 | Nov 2016 | north american | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11a.p66.NA [P].indd 66 10/12/16 2:22 PM University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign invites applications for full-time faculty positions at all levels and in all areas of electrical and computer engineering, with particular emphasis in the areas of bio-electronics, bio-computation, bio-informatics and engineering; network science & communications; data science, machine learning and its applications; control, optimization, and decision science; robotics; nanoscale circuits and systems; microelectronics and nanotechnology; electromagnetics, radio frequency, and terahertz systems; power electronics, machines, and systems; reliable and secure computing; networked and distributed computing; high-performance, energy-efficient, and scientific computing; data center and storage systems. Applications are encouraged from candidates whose research programs are in core as well as interdisciplinary areas of electrical and computer engineering.

Applicants for positions at the assistant professor level must have an earned Ph.D. or equivalent degree, excellent academic credentials, and an outstanding ability to teach effectively at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Successful candidates will be expected to initiate and carry out independent research and to perform academic duties associated with our B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. programs.

Senior level appointments with tenure are available for persons of international stature. Qualified senior candidates may also be considered for tenured full Professor positions as part of the Grainger Engineering Breakthroughs Initiative (http://graingerinitiative.engineering.illinois.edu), which is backed by a $100-million gift from the Grainger Foundation. Faculty in the department carry out research in a broad spectrum of areas and are supported by worldclass interdisciplinary research facilities, including the Coordinated Science Laboratory, the Information Trust Institute, the Parallel Computing Institute, the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, as well as several industrial centers and programs that foster international collaborations. The department has one of the very top ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING programs in the United States, granting approximately 450 B.S. degrees, 100 M.S. degrees, and 75 The University of Iowa invites applicants for two Ph.D. degrees annually. The ECE Department has recently settled into its new 235,000 sq. ft. net-zero tenure-track assistant professor positions, one in energy design building, which is a major campus addition with minimal carbon footprint. the area of cyber-physical systems or Internet of Things and the other in augmented or virtual reality. A PhD in Electrical or Computer Engineering, or a In order to ensure full consideration by the Search Committee, applications must be received by closely related field is required. The successful December 15, 2016. Applications will be reviewed until suitable candidates are identified. Interviews candidate is expected to develop an externally and offers may take place before the deadline but all applications received by the deadline would funded internationally recognized research program receive full consideration. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications. Preferred starting date is and to contribute fully as a scholar through August 16, 2017, but is negotiable. Applications can be submitted by going to http://jobs.illinois.edu teaching undergraduate and graduate courses and uploading a cover letter, CV, research statement, and teaching statement, along with names of and through service to science and engineering. Detailed descriptions of the available position, three references. For inquiry, please call 217-333-2302 or email [email protected]. candidate requirements, and application process The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance can be found at: http://jobs.uiowa.edu/, under the of a contingent offer. faculty section, searching requisitions 69820 and 69821. Applications from women and minorities Illinois is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for are especially encouraged. The University of Iowa employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, status as a protected is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply veteran, or status as a qualified individual with a disability. Illinois welcomes individuals with diverse and will receive consideration for employment free backgrounds, experiences, and ideas who embrace and value diversity and inclusivity from discrimination on the basis of race, creed, (www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu). color, national origin, age, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, We have an active and successful dual-career partner placement program and a strong commitment to work-life religion, associational preference, status as a qualified individual with a disability, or status as a balance and family-friendly programs for faculty and staff protected veteran. (http://provost.illinois.edu/worklife/index.html).

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | north american | Nov 2016 | 67

11a.p67.NA [P].indd 67 10/7/16 2:32 PM Faculty Positions in Electrical Engineering Two tenure-track Assistant Professor The Department of Electrical Engineering in the School of positions in Electrical Engineering Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Pennsylvania State The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Lawrence University invites applications for tenure-track faculty positions at Technological University invites applications for two tenure track faculty all levels. Preferred candidates must hold a doctoral degree in positions at the Assistant Professor level. Preference will be given to can- Electrical Engineering or a related discipline with appropriate didates in the areas of optoelectronics, microelectronics, nanoelectronics, experience. The successful candidates will be expected to power systems, electrical machinery, or control systems. Applications will establish and sustain an outstanding research program and also be considered for other faculty ranks such as non-tenure track Col- must have outstanding ability to teach effectively at both the lege Professor. Applicants must have at the time of appointment a Ph.D. in undergraduate and graduate levels. Exceptional candidates from Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering or a related field, as well a broad range of areas in electrical and computer engineering as potential for excellence in teaching and research. will be considered, including electronic and photonic devices The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering houses four de- and energy systems. Areas of particular interest include solid gree programs: Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Bachelor state nanoelectronics and nanophotonics for future generation of Science in Computer Engineering, Bachelor of Science in Embedded computing, communication and storage applications, sensors, Software Engineering, and Master of Science in Electrical and Computer wearable technology, and power electronics hardware and Engineering. The programs enroll some 180 undergraduate and 80 gradu- wide-bandgap devices for smart grid, electrical vehicles, and ate students. The faculty are primarily dedicated to high quality teaching and learning, while at the same time maintaining commendable scholar- data centers. Information about the Department can be found ship activity including R&D collaboration with international corporations at: http://www.eecs.psu.edu. Nominations and applications and federally funded grants. will be considered until the positions are filled. Screening of applicants will begin on November 1, 2016. Applicants should Applicants should submit a resume, a list of three references with contact submit the following: 1) curriculum vita, 2) statement of information, and statements of teaching philosophy and research goals. research, 3) statement of teaching, and 4) the names and Please submit materials via email to [email protected]. Consideration of applications will begin on October 1, 2016 and will continue until positions addresses of four references. The Department of Electrical are filled. Effective date of employment is January or August 2017. EOE Engineering in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Pennsylvania State University invites applications for tenure-track faculty positions at all levels. Preferred candidates must hold a doctoral degree in The Electrical Engineering Department at the Electrical Engineering or a related discipline with appropriate University of Washington experience. The successful candidates will be expected to establish and sustain an outstanding research program Invites applications for multiple positions at the level and must have outstanding ability to teach effectively at of tenure-track assistant and associate professor in both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Exceptional electrical and computer engineering. In particular, we are candidates from a broad range of areas in electrical and computer looking for outstanding candidates in the following areas: engineering will be considered, including electronic and 1) Power systems, power electronics, cyber-physical photonic devices and energy systems. Areas of particular systems, IoT, smart and connected communities. interest include solid state nanoelectronics and nanophotonics for future generation computing, communication and storage 2) Chip-scale integration of electronics and photonics, nanophotonics, and devices applications, sensors, wearable technology, and power made with novel optical materials. Candidates’ research should address application- electronics hardware and wide-bandgap devices for smart grid, relevant technological requirements and device specific performance parameters. electrical vehicles, and data centers. Information about the 3) Advanced Wireless Network Platforms: Broadband Transceivers, Software If you have any questions regarding the application process, Defined Radios/Networking, Programmable Embedded Systems/Devices, please contact Kiersten Gibson at [email protected] or Convergence with Cloud Computing for 5G Architectures. (814) 863-2788. However, the highest priority is to recruit exceptional candidates regardless of the specific areas listed above. Information about the department can be found at Apply online at http://apptrkr.com/876634 http://www.ee.washington.edu. Applicants should possess a PhD degree, have demonstrated the ability to perform CAMPUS SECURITY CRIME STATISTICS: For more about high quality research and to teach both graduate and undergraduate courses in safety at Penn State, and to review the Annual Security the department. All successful candidates are expected to establish a very strong Report which contains information about crime statistics and research program, to supervise graduate students and to engage in high quality other safety and security matters, please go to http://www. teaching at all levels. police.psu.edu/clery/, which will also provide you with detail Please apply online at http://www.ee.washington.edu/facsearch/, position on how to request a hard copy of the Annual Security Report. number AA20671. Applications received by January 1, 2017 will be given priority consideration. Open positions are contingent on funding. Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment The University of Washington is building a culturally diverse faculty and encourages applications opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to from women and minority candidates. The University of Washington is an affirmative action race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender and equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. employment without regard to, among other things, race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, status as protected veterans, or status as qualified individuals with disabilities.

68 | Nov 2016 | north american | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

11a.p68.NA [P].indd 68 10/7/16 2:36 PM George Washington University Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Senior Faculty Position in Nanotechnology

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the George Washington University (GWU) invites applications for a tenured or tenure track faculty appointment at the Associate or Full Professor level. The University of Central Florida (UCF) University has recently made substantial investments in a new Class Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) 100 nano-fabrication facility (https://nic.gwu.edu/) within its brand The department has openings for exceptional tenured or tenure-track new Science & Engineering Hall (https://seh.gwu.edu/). ECE is seeking faculty members, two in ECE as well as multiple openings in UCF’s candidates who have established national and international leadership in energy systems cluster. nanotechnology research. Applicants must have an earned doctorate in All areas of ECE are considered. Of special interests are mid-career or Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering or a relevant discipline. To entry-level candidates in controls, brain monitoring and biomedical sensing, high-frequency circuits, machines and drives, power devices, apply, please go to http://www.gwu.jobs/postings/37728 and complete robotics, energy harvesting and storage, energy efficient computing, the online application. Please upload a cover letter indicating your embedded systems, GPU design and multicore systems, embedded primary area(s) of expertise and interest, desired professorial rank, a software, mobile computing devices, IoT, and big data. detailed CV or resume, concise statements on teaching and research, The cluster of Resilient, Intelligent and Sustainable Energy Systems and full contact information for five professional references. Only (RISES) has five open faculty positions at senior and entry-level levels. complete applications will be considered. Review of applications will The areas of interest include but are not limited to: PV systems; planning and optimization for transmission networks; protection and control begin on December 1, 2016 and will continue until the position is filled. of distribution networks; forecast and optimization for renewables; distributed energy resources; wide area monitoring and control; secure Employment offers are contingent on the satisfactory outcome of a power networks and cyber physical systems; (critical) infrastructure standard background screening. management; energy and resource economics; and design of resilient network and systems. More details can be found at our cluster website The university is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer http://www.ucf.edu/research/RISES. that does not unlawfully discriminate in any of its programs or activities on the UCF offers a competitive salary and start-up package as well as generous basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, benefits. Individual and interdisciplinary infrastructure and startup are sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or on any other basis prohibited expected for these positions as well. by applicable law. All applicants must have a Ph.D. from an accredited institution in an area appropriate to the ECE disciplines or the RISES cluster by the start of the appointment and a strong commitment to academic activities, including teaching, scholarly publications and sponsored research. Successful candidates will have an exceptional record of scholarly research and, at the senior levels, be highly recognized for their technical contributions and leadership in their areas of expertise. Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Electrical Engineering ECE has strong educational and research programs, with over 300 graduate students and 1,000 undergraduates, and a state-of-the- The College of Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical art facility, the Harris Engineering Center. The department has three University in Daytona Beach, Florida, has an ambitious competitively-awarded research centers: FEEDER funded by Department agenda focused on expanding its graduate programs, research of Energy, the Electric Vehicle Research Center funded by the US Department of Transportation, and MIST funded by NSF. Additional capabilities, facilities, and talented faculty. The Electrical, research sponsors include DARPA, NASA, ARO, AMD, Analog Devices, Computer, Software, and Systems Engineering Department Harris, Intel, L-3 Communication, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, Siemens, currently invites applicants for a tenure-track position at the and Texas Instruments as well as local high-tech start-ups. In 2016, Assistant Professor level starting in Jan. or Aug. 2017. UCF’s ECE department is ranked the 30th among US public universities by US News and World Report. Applicants should have a doctorate in electrical or computer UCF has over 63,000 students and is the nation’s second largest university. engineering; practical related experience is valued. The Located in Orlando, ECE and UCF are at the center of Florida High Tech successful candidate will excel at teaching & mentoring Corridor with an excellent industrial base in telecommunications, undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students, and will bring energy, computer systems, semiconductors, defense, space, lasers, simulation, software and the world-renowned entertainment/theme park or develop externally funded research supporting core industry. Exceptional weather, easy access to the seashore, one of the department areas—including but not limited to UAS sense & largest convention centers in the nation and an international airport that avoid (e.g., radar, avionics, comms., & remote sensing). is among the world’s best are just a few features that make the UCF/ Orlando area ideal. Faculty research opportunities exist at our NEAR Lab, a UCF is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified premiere center for modeling and simulation, at the Eagle applicants are encouraged to apply, including minorities, women, Flight Research Center, a leader in flight control systems, veterans and individuals with disabilities. As a Florida public university, UAS, and green aviation, and through the FAA’s ASSURE UCF makes all application materials and selection procedures available Center of Excellence in Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Related to the public upon request. labs in the MicaPlex—the cornerstone building of ERAU’s Please send your inquiry to [email protected] for ECE positions Research Park—span radar, sensors, unmanned systems, and or to [email protected] for RISES positions. To submit an application, spacecraft, and are scheduled for completion in early 2017. go to the following link(s). ECE positions: https://www.jobswithucf.com/postings/47277 To apply, visit careers.erau.edu, job code 160222. RISES Cluster positions: https://www.jobswithucf.com/postings/47271

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11a.p69.NA [P].indd 69 10/13/16 8:45 AM Worcester Polytechnic Institute Robotics Engineering Program Professor & Director of Robotics Engineering – August 2017

The University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) Department of Worcester Polytechnic Institute invites applications for Director of the Robotics Electrical and Biomedical Engineering invites applications Engineering Program for fall 2017. You should hold a Ph.D. in engineering, from outstanding candidates for a position at the assistant computer science, or a closely related field, possess experience teaching robotics, professor level in Biomedical Engineering. Preference will and have a record of robotics research accomplishment to justify appointment be given to candidates with expertise in spatial biology, as (Full) Professor. Equally importantly, you should have a demonstrated record of bioinstrumentation, biosensors or bioimaging. innovation and academic leadership. The position requires a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering,

Now in its 10th year, the WPI Robotics Engineering program has been recognized Biomedical Engineering, or a related field and the ability for its unique multi-disciplinary approach to robotics education and its cutting to develop a robust externally funded research program, edge robotics research. We offer the Nation’s first undergraduate degree in teach graduate and undergraduate courses, supervise Robotics, as well as the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, with over 340 undergraduate and graduate students, and engage in outreach activities. over 170 graduate students enrolled. The 12 core and 20 affiliated robotics faculty members have research support from NSF, NIH, AFRL, ONR, NASA, In the last five years, the College of Engineering DARPA, and industry. We expect you to lead the exceptionally close-knit, collaborative, has witnessed an unprecedented growth in student and collegial community we currently enjoy. enrollment and number of faculty positions. The College

Please refer to our website at http://robotics.wpi.edu/ for more information. is positioned to further enhance its growth of its students, faculty, staff, facilities as well as its research productivity Founded in 1865, WPI is one of the nation’s oldest technological universities. Today, and its graduate and undergraduate programs.

WPI is a highly selective private university with an undergraduate student body of For further information and to apply for a position please over 4,000 and 1,900 full- and part-time graduate students enrolled in more than 50 visit: (https://www.unrsearch.com/postings/21974). Bachelor’s, Master’s and Ph.D. programs. WPI is consistently ranked among the top national universities in U.S. News & World Report. Our innovative project-enriched AA/EEO Women and Under-represented groups, individuals curriculum engages students and faculty in real-world problem solving, often at one with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply. of WPI’s project centers. The university is located in the heart of Massachusetts an hour away from Boston and Providence.

Questions about the hiring process should be sent to [email protected]. Applications should be submitted per instructions at http://apptrkr.com/885760. Please include detailed research and teaching statements, vitae, and contact information for at least three references. Applications should be received by Decem- Tenure-Track Faculty Position ber 16, 2016. Applications will be reviewed as they are received; there- The Department of Electrical Engineering seeks fore, applicants are encouraged to apply early. applications in all areas of Electrical Engineering for a tenure-track assistant professor faculty To enrich education through diversity, WPI is an affirmative action, position with particular interest in the areas of: equal opportunity employer. Biological & Biomedical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electronic Materials and Devices, Information Sciences and Systems, Photonics, Power and Energy, Quantum Engineering, Robotics and Cyber-Physical Systems, and Solid State Physics. Candidates should have a commitment to teaching and a demonstrated ability to pursue a high impact research program. A start date of September 1, 2017 is preferred. Applicant review will begin in November. For full The Electrical Engineering Department at the University consideration, please submit applications no later Cluster Hire in Biomedical Engineering of Tennessee at Chattanooga invites applications than December 15, 2016, using the following site: for 2 tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professor The University of Vermont (UVM) seeks candidates https://apply-ee.princeton.edu/. Applications positions beginning August 1, 2017. Positions require for multiple tenure-track faculty positions require: a complete curriculum vitae, descriptions in Biomedical Engineering to support new a terminal degree as well as teaching, research, and of research and teaching interests, and the service responsibilities. Priority areas include: power undergraduate and graduate programs and expand contact information for four references. Princeton systems, renewable energy, Smart Grid, Microgrid, and existing research initiatives with UVM’s College of Medicine. Candidates with interests in all areas of University is an equal opportunity employer. All Cyber-Physical Security. Full details of the positions BME are welcome, including, biomedical sensing/ qualified applicants will receive consideration for with application instructions are available at https:// imaging, biomechanics, etc. UVM is an EO/AA employment without regard to race, color, religion, ut.taleo.net/careersection/utc_faculty/jobdetail. Employer. Applications from women, veterans, sex, national origin, disability status, protected ftl?job=160000016X. Review of applications will begin individuals with disabilities and people from immediately and continue until the position is filled. diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds veteran status, or any other characteristic protected The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is an EEO/ are highly encouraged. Full details are available at by law. The selected candidate will be required to AA/Title VI/Title IX/Section 504/ADA/ADEA institution. https://www.uvmjobs.com, position # 00024276. successfully complete a background check.

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11a.p70.NA [P].indd 70 10/12/16 2:06 PM Southern Methodist University Tenure-Track Assistant/Associate Professor Positions Department of Electrical Engineering The Southern Methodist University, Department of Electrical Engineering, invites applications for one full-time tenured Full Professor. The University of North Texas successful candidate will also hold the title of Mary and Rich Templeton The Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of North Texas Centennial Chair in Electrical Engineering. Candidates in all areas of (UNT) is seeking candidates for three faculty positions at the Assistant interest within electrical engineering will be considered, including but not (tenure-track) or Associate Professor (tenure-track or tenured) level limited to the following: smart grids, power systems, signal processing, wireless communications and networking, electromagnetics, general starting Fall 2017. The positions are open to all areas in electrical en- analog/digital mixed-mode circuits, biomedical, photonics, MEMS, gineering with an emphasis on the department’s three current thrust ar- semiconductor devices, and control systems. Exceptional candidates in eas: aerial communication and signal processing, RF/circuit design and other closely related areas will also be considered. electronic design automation, and systems and control. An earned Ph.D. Successful candidates must have a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering degree in electrical engineering or a closely related field is required. For or a related field, and are expected to teach undergraduate and graduate the Assistant Professor position we are looking for candidates with a courses, as well as to develop an innovative, externally funded, research strong publication record and the potential to succeed in securing reprogram. Successful candidates must have demonstrated their ability to search funding and mentoring graduate students. For the Associate build and sustain a world class research program. Successful candidates Professor position we expect a sustained record of providing mentoring will be expected to supervise Master’s and Doctoral students and to junior faculty, advising graduate students, providing service to the participate in interdisciplinary efforts within the School. University and profession, and securing external funding for research SMU is a private university dedicated to academic excellence. Located activities. For the Associate Professor position a significant publication in Dallas, SMU maintains a moderate size of about 11,000 students. record, and current research funding and graduate student mentoring The Electrical Engineering Department resides within the Lyle School of are also required. Engineering and is located in the Jerry R. Junkins Building, completed in August 2002. The Jerry R. Junkins Building houses a research The Electrical Engineering Department offers BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees laboratory complex with a 2,800 square foot Class 10,000 cleanroom. in electrical engineering. It is home to over 460 undergraduate and grad- The department offers B.S., M.S., and Ph. D. degrees in Electrical uate students. Additional information about the department is available Engineering and a M.S. degree in Telecommunications. Additional at the website: http://engineering.unt.edu/electrical/. information is provided at: http://lyle.smu.edu/ee. To learn more about the rich cultural environment of SMU, please see: http://smu.edu. Application Procedure: SMU is designated as a preferred employer in the Dallas/Forth Worth All applications must be submitted online at: http://facultyjobs.unt.edu. metroplex, one of the most prolific high-tech industrial centers in the country. The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is a multi-faceted business and Questions regarding the positions can be directed to the search commit- engineering community, offering exceptional museums, diverse cultural tee Chair, Dr. Xinrong Li at [email protected]. Offers of employment for attractions and a vibrant economy. Dallas’ quality of life is exceptional these positions will be made dependent upon available funding. with a relatively low cost of living, upscale apartments and homes within walking distance of campus, the opportunity to live in the city or out in Application Deadline: the country with a relatively short commute, and the availability of both The committee will begin its review of applications on November 1, 2016, mass transit systems and plentiful on-campus parking. and continue to accept and review applications until the position is filled. Interested and qualified individuals should send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, a statement of educational interests, a research plan, The University: and a list of five references to [email protected] (preferred) or by UNT, classified in the Carnegie Classification as a Doctoral University: mail to: Dr. Dinesh Rajan, Electrical Engineering Faculty Search, Electrical Highest Research Activity (R1), is a major research university with rap- Engineering Department, P.O. Box 750338, Dallas, TX 75275-0338. The idly growing engineering research and educational programs. As the na- position will begin on or before the Fall 2017 semester. To ensure full consideration, applications must be emailed or postmarked prior to tion’s 24th largest public university and the largest, most comprehensive December 15, 2016. The committee, however, will continue to accept in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, UNT is dedicated to providing an excellent applications until the position is filled. Please reference position number educational experience to its almost 38,000 students through 99 bach- 53659. elor’s, 83 master’s, and 36 doctoral degree programs in its 12 colleges SMU will not discriminate in any program or activity on the basis of race, and schools, many nationally and internationally recognized. UNT is stra- color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, tegically located in Denton, Texas, a vibrant city with a lively arts and veteran status, sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression. music culture, at the northern end of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan The Executive Director for Access and Equity/Title IX Coordinator is area. The DFW area has more than six million people, with significant designated to handle inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies economic growth, numerous industrial establishments, and excellent and may be reached at the Perkins Administration Building, Room 204, school districts. 6425 Boaz Lane, Dallas, TX 75205, 214-768-3601, accessequity@smu. edu. Women, minorities, veterans and persons with disabilities are The University of North Texas is an Equal Opportunity/Access/Affirmative strongly encouraged to apply. Hiring is contingent upon the satisfactory Action/Pro Disabled & Veteran Institution committed to diversity in its completion of a background check. employment and educational programs, thereby creating a welcoming *Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681-1688. environment for everyone.

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11a.p71.NA [P].indd 71 10/14/16 2:23 PM Faculty Positions (All Ranks) DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING College of Engineering University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Assistant Professor The Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at University of Massachusetts Amherst Urbana-Champaign invites applications for multiple faculty positions in all ranks. Emphasis College of Engineering is on the areas of (i) manufacturing and (ii) energy and sustainability; however, excellent Electrical and Computer Engineering Department candidates will be considered in all areas related to mechanical science and engineering. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Institute for Applied Life Sciences (IALS) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) invite applications for A doctoral degree is required, and salary is commensurate with qualifications and experience. one or two tenure-track faculty positions at the Assistant level in the area of bioelectronics (devices, Applications received by December 4, 2016, will circuits or systems). The research will help advance the mission of the Center for Personalized Health receive full consideration. Early applications are Monitoring (CPHM) in developing new health sensing systems. A number of regional facilities encouraged. Interviews may take place before provide outstanding opportunities for collaboration including the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences the given date; applications received after that Institute, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Baystate Medical Center. date may be considered until positions are filled. A Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) grant of $95M to UMass Amherst is being used The expected start date of a position offered/ to equip its new Bioelectronics Life Sciences Laboratories in preparation for the added growth in accepted through this search is August 16, 2017, faculty. Information about the ECE Department can be found at http://ece.umass.edu. but other start dates will be considered. A full position description and information on The successful hire would work at boundaries between ECE and the life or computational how to apply can be found on the University sciences and have expertise in areas including but not limited to novel nano electronic devices for of Illinois Urbana-Champaign online jobsite bioelectrical interfaces, flexible/stretchable/printable electronics, ultralow power circuits and sensors, http://jobs.illinois.edu. For further information and RF/THz/photonic integrated circuits and systems. regarding application procedures, please address questions to: The candidates will be expected to develop a strong externally-funded research program, must be [email protected]. committed to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in electrical and computer engineering, and should have an understanding of diversity issues and their educational importance. Interest The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks on all job candidates upon in contributing to multidisciplinary education and research programs will be favorably viewed. acceptance of a contingent offer. Candidates must have an earned doctorate in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, or related field at the time of appointment. The new hire will collaborate with IALS faculty to translate research results into therapeutic goals, interact with industry scientists, and provide essential training for the next generation of biomedical scientists. The UMass Amherst campus is committed to the development of translational and basic research programs while fostering interactions with industry. The new hire will also be able to take full advantage of the new IALS investments in enhanced campus infrastructure and core facilities (see http://www.umass.edu/ials/core-facilities for more details). www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu Illinois is an EOE employer/Vet/Disabled The search committee will begin reviewing applications on December 19, 2016. The search will continue until the position is filled (contingent upon funding). Application materials must be submitted online. The application should include a cover letter, CV with a list of publications, a research statement, a teaching statement, and a list of at least four references with complete contact information. These materials should be submitted to: http://umass.interviewexchange.com/candapply.jsp?JOBID=76937 For questions about the position, contact Mary McCulloch, [email protected] The University is committed to active recruitment of a diverse faculty and student body. The University of Massachusetts Amherst is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer of women, minorities, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities and encourages applications The Laboratory for Intelligent Systems from these and other protected group members. Because broad diversity is essential to an and Controls (LISC) at Cornell University inclusive climate and critical to the University’s goals of achieving excellence in all areas, we will is now accepting applications for multiple holistically assess the many qualifications of each applicant and favorably consider an individual’s record working with students and colleagues with broadly diverse perspectives, experiences, and Postdoctoral Associate positions in the backgrounds in educational, research or other work activities. We will also favorably consider areas of intelligent sensing and control experience overcoming or helping others overcome barriers to an academic degree and career. theory with applications to autonomous We are seeking talented applicants qualified for an assistant professor position. Under exceptional systems, robotics, sensing, and image circumstances, highly qualified candidates at other ranks may receive consideration. processing. The areas of emphasis are information-driven planning and control, convolutional neural networks, learning control, robust and adaptive control. Exceptionally qualified candidates with background in Mechanical, Aerospace, or Electrical Engineering are eligible THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA The Department of Electrical and Computer to apply. Expertise in one or more of DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND Engineering at UCSB invites applications for a tenure- the following areas is desired: control COMPUTER ENGINEERING track faculty position in the area of the Internet of theory, unmanned vehicles, intelligent Things with an effective appointment date of July Publication: IEEE Spectrum The MagazineUniversity of Alabama Department of Electrical Size: 4.5625” x 7.375” Notes: b/w 1, 2017. Exceptional candidates will be considered systems, sonar, information theory, Job# 21888 and Computer Engineering IO#: 21888-21888 invites applications machine Screen: learning,85 dpi deep learning, for two tenure-track faculty positions: one in RF regardless of specific research area. Please visit Mechanical: mbb, dg electronics focused on radar and device fabrication, https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/apply/JPF00856 Proofreader: Bayesian nonparametric models. To apply for a Postdoctoral Associate and one in transportation focused on vehicle to The University of California is an Equal infrastructure communications and control. The Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and all position, please send your (i) CV, (ii) top positions require a PhD in electrical/computer two papers, and (iii) contact information engineering or a closely related field. More qualified applicants will receive consideration information may be found at http://ece.eng.ua.edu. for employment without regard to race, color, for three referees to [email protected]. Applicants should apply online at http://facultyjobs. religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, For more information, visit: ua.edu. The University of Alabama is an equal national origin, disability status, protected veteran opportunity employer. status, or any other characteristic protected by law. http://lisc.mae.cornell.edu

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11a.p72.NA [P].indd 72 10/12/16 2:19 PM DEPARTMENT OF Worcester Polytechnic Institute AEROSPACE ENGINEERING - Robotics Engineering Program Tenure Track Faculty Position – August 2017 Open Rank Faculty Search College of Engineering The WPI Robotics Engineering Program invites applications for a tenure-track University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign faculty position at all levels for fall 2017. You should hold a Ph.D. in engineering, computer science, or a closely related field, possess the desire to actively engage The Department of Aerospace Engineering in teaching robotics at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, and have a at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign seeks highly qualified clear plan to establish a vibrant, externally funded research program. candidates for multiple faculty positions in all areas of aerospace engineering, Research areas of interest include, but are not limited to: Fundamentals (e.g. Controls, with emphasis on the areas of orbital mechanics, space systems, multi-functional Learning, Perception), Capabilities (e.g. Human-Robot Interaction, Manipulation, composites, and additive manufacturing. Mobility), and Applications (e.g. Exploration, Health, Manufacturing). Preference will be given to qualified candidates working in emerging areas of aerospace engineering whose scholarly Now in its 10th year, the WPI Robotics Engineering program has been recognized for its activities have high impact. Please visit http://jobs.illinois.edu to view the unique multi-disciplinary approach to robotics education and its cutting-edge robotics complete position announcement and research. We offer the Nation’s first undergraduate degree in Robotics, as well as the application instructions. Full consideration will be given to applications received by M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, with over 340 undergraduate and over 170 graduate students December 16, 2016. Applications received enrolled. The 12 core and 20 affiliated robotics faculty members have research support after that date may be considered until the positions are filled. from NSF, NIH, AFRL, ONR, NASA, DARPA, and industry. The exceptionally close-knit, collaborative, and collegial faculty routinely engages in joint proposals and research, The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks on all job candidates shared labs and facilities, mentoring, and teaching guidance. upon acceptance of a contingent offer.

Illinois is an EEO Employer/Vet/Disabled - Please refer to our website at http://robotics.wpi.edu/ for more information. www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu and committed to a family-friendly environment Founded in 1865, WPI is one of the nation’s oldest technological universities. Today, (http://provost.illinois.edu/worklife/index.html). WPI is a highly selective private university with an undergraduate student body of over 4,000 and 1,900 full- and part-time graduate students enrolled in more than 50 Bachelor’s, Master’s and Ph.D. programs. WPI is consistently ranked among the top national universities in U.S. News & World Report. Our innovative project-enriched curriculum engages students and faculty in real-world problem solving, often at one of WPI’s project centers. The university is located in the heart of Massachusetts an hour away from Boston and Providence.

Questions about the hiring process should be sent to [email protected]. Applications should be submitted per instructions at http://apptrkr.com/885743. UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND Please include detailed research and teaching statements, vitae, and contact information Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for at least three references. Applications should be received by Assistant Director, Master’s in December 16, 2016. Applications will be reviewed as they are Telecommunications Program (#119535) received; therefore, applicants are encouraged to apply early. The Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering is seeking an Assistant Director for the Master’s in Telecommunications (ENTS) program. This is a non-tenure-track full-time position with To enrich education through diversity, WPI is an affirmative both academic and administrative responsibilities. action, equal opportunity employer. The Assistant Director will teach ENTS technical courses, and advise ENTS students on academic matters. Additional responsibilities will include reviewing scholarly papers, developing and updating the ENTS curriculum, contributing to the long-term development of the ENTS program, and supporting the director in the program’s educational, operational, management and strategic activities. Three Faculty Positions in Electrical The position requires a Master’s degree (preferably a and Computer Engineering Ph.D.) in electrical engineering, computer science or The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Tennessee at The Department of Electrical and Computer a related field, specializing in computer networking, Chattanooga invites applications from exceptionally Engineering at USU is seeking applications to computer communications, cyber-security or a qualified candidates in Computer Science/ fill three tenure track positions in the following similar technical area. Candidates should have at Engineering for a tenure-track faculty position at areas. (1) control systems, robotics, unmanned least 5 years of professional experience, ideally in the Assistant or Associate Professor level beginning or autonomous vehicles (air, land, sea), and both educational and industrial settings. Excellent August 2017. A Ph.D. is required and strongest distributed systems (http://usu.hiretouch.com/job- teaching skills, written and oral communication consideration will be given to candidates with skills, interpersonal skills and good organizational details?jobID=1840) (2) trustworthy computing a strong record of scholarship in data science in hardware, embedded systems, reconfigurable abilities required. For best consideration, apply by area. Experience applying this core knowledge November 30, 2016 at https://ejobs.umd.edu/ to urban, medical or social science is desired. computing, and internet of things (http://usu. (position #119535). Please e-mail resume, descriptions of teaching and hiretouch.com/job-details?jobID=1835) USU is research philosophies, and copy of your transcript sensitive to the needs of dual-career applicants and University of Maryland is an affirmative action, equal listing the completion of your doctoral degree to is dedicated to recruiting stellar candidates from a opportunity employer. Women and minorities are strongly [email protected]. For questions, contact Dr. diverse pool including women, minorities, veterans encouraged to apply. Mina Sartipi at [email protected]. and persons with disabilities.

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11a.p73.NA [P].indd 73 10/7/16 2:48 PM Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Graduate School of Engineering and Management Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Dayton, Ohio Department Head and Faculty Position in Computer and Electrical Engineering Faculty Position: Applied Mathematics & Math & Engineering The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), the premier Department of Defense (DoD) institution for graduate education in science, technology, engineering, and management, The Department of Mathematics and Statistics, is seeking applications for the position of Professor and Head, Department of Electrical and Faculty of Arts and Science at Queen’s University, Computer Engineering. The department offers MS and PhD programs in EE, CPE, and CS and Kingston, Canada, invites applications for an MS program in Cyber Operations. These programs are accredited by the North Central a Tenure-track faculty position in Applied Association of Colleges and Schools. Both the MS EE and MS CPE programs are also accredited Mathematics and Mathematics and Engineering at the rank of Assistant Professor with a starting by ABET, Inc. date of July 1, 2017. Applicants for the Department Head position must have an earned doctorate in electrical In areas related to Mathematics and Engineering, or computer engineering or computer science with credentials commensurate with the there are presently prominent research groups appointment as full professor with academic tenure. In addition, a strong record of academic in Information and Communication Theory, leadership experience is highly desirable. Control Theory, and Geometric Mechanics. For more information about the Mathematics AFIT is also seeking applicants for a tenure-track faculty position in electrical or computer and Engineering program, please see http:// engineering. Background and experience in electronic warfare or VLSI/microelectronics www.mast.queensu.ca/meng/. A successful are particularly desired. The position is at the assistant professor level, although qualified candidate will be expected to work in any of these or complementary research areas, candidates will be considered at all levels. The position requires teaching at the graduate level as and to contribute to both the graduate and well as establishing and sustaining a strong research program. Applicants must have an earned undergraduate programs. A candidate who joins doctorate in computer engineering or electrical engineering or closely related field. the Mathematics and Engineering group will be expected to obtain a license as a Professional Applicants for either position must be U.S. citizens and currently possess, or be able to obtain, Engineer; an undergraduate degree in a Top Secret security clearance. Engineering is a strong asset towards obtaining Full details on these positions, the department, applicant qualifications, and application the license. procedures can be found at http://www.afit.edu/ENG/page.cfm?page=1200. Review of For the full position announcement and applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. The United information on how to apply, please, visit: http:// States Air Force is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. www.mast.queensu.ca/positions/.

FACULTY POSITIONS Electrical and Computer Engineering NYU SHANGHAI The Ohio State University invites applications for multiple tenure

NYU Shanghai is currently inviting applications for tenured/tenure track positions track faculty positions in the Department of Electrical and Computer at the rank of assistant, associate, or full professor. We will consider applicants Engineering. All areas and ranks will be considered. We are especially in all areas of electrical and computer engineering, and have a particular interest in applicants in the fields of Multimedia Analytics, Neural Engineering, Systems interested in (i) robotics, including human/robot interactions, (ii) mobile Neuroscience, Robotics, Smart Cities and Smart Vehicles. The applicants must health sensing and health analytics, (iii) senior and junior faculty in have demonstrated abilities in both research and teaching. Candidates must have completed a Ph.D. or equivalent by the time of appointment. cybersecurity (including hardware-enabled cybersecurity) and mobility, The terms of employment in NYU Shanghai are comparable to U.S. institutions in (iv) electric machines and variable frequency drive systems, and (v) terms of research start-up funds and compensation, and include housing subsidies Director of the ElectroScience Laboratory and Professor of Electrical and and educational subsidies for children. Faculty may also spend time at NYU New York and other sites of the NYU global network, engaging in both research and teaching. Computer Engineering. For additional information on these positions, Applications are due no later than January 15, 2017 and will be reviewed until the see https://ece.osu.edu/about/employment. All positions may involve position is filled. To be considered, candidates should submit a curriculum vitae, joint appointments with other engineering departments. Applicants separate statements of research and teaching interests (no more than three pages each), electronic copies of up to five recent, relevant publications and the names and must have a Ph.D. and outstanding academic credentials. Successful addresses of three or more individuals willing to provide letters of reference. Please candidates are expected to develop a vigorous externally funded research visit our website at http://shanghai.nyu.edu/en/about/work-here/open-positions- faculty for instructions and other information on how to apply. If you have any program, show excellence and leadership in academic and scholarly questions, please e-mail [email protected]. activities, and demonstrate outstanding teaching at the undergraduate About NYU Shanghai: and graduate levels. NYU Shanghai is the newest degree-granting campus within New York University’s global network. It is the first higher education joint venture in China authorized to grant degrees that are accredited in the U.S. as well as in China. All teaching is Applicants are requested to send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, conducted in English. A research university with liberal arts and science at its core, statement of research plans, brief statement of teaching philosophy, it resides in one of the world’s great cities with a vibrant intellectual community. NYU Shanghai recruits scholars of the highest caliber who are committed to NYU’s global and name, address, and email of four references to Professor John vision of transformative teaching and innovative research and who embody the L. Volakis at [email protected]. Some of these positions are global society in which we live. partially funded by Ohio State’s Discovery Themes Initiative, a significant NYU’s global network includes degree-granting campuses in New York, Shanghai, and Abu Dhabi, complemented by eleven additional academic centers across five faculty hiring investment in key thematic areas that build on the continents. Faculty and students circulate within the network in pursuit of common university’s culture of academic collaboration to make a global impact. research interests and cross-cultural, interdisciplinary endeavors, both local and global. The Ohio State University is committed to establishing a culturally and NYU Shanghai is an equal opportunity employer committed to equity, diversity and social inclusion. We intellectually diverse environment, encouraging all members of our strongly encourage applications from individuals who are learning community to reach their full potential. We are responsive to under-represented in the profession, across color, creed, race, ethnic and national origin, physical ability, and gender dual-career families and strongly promote work-life balance to support and sexual identity. NYU Shanghai affirms the value of our community members through a suite of institutionalized policies. differing perspectives on the world as we strive to build the strongest possible university with the widest reach. We are an NSF Advance Institution and a member of the Ohio/Western EOE/AA/Minorities/Females/Vet/Disabled/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity Employer Pennsylvania/West Virginia Higher Education Recruitment Consortium.

74 | Nov 2016 | north american | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG IEEE SPECTRUM 11/1/2016, 12/1/2016, 1/1/2017 11a.p74.NA10005083-NY17818 [P].indd 74 10/12/16 2:12 PM NEWYOU 3.25” x 4.75” Lynn Greenbaum v.1 The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UCSB invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in the area of Computer Engineering with an effective appointment date of July 1, 2017. Please visit https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/apply/JPF00853 The University of California is an Equal The School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer is growing its faculty by 33% over a five-year period. As part of this initiative, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics is engaged in to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, an aggressive, multi-year hiring effort for multiple tenure-track positions at the gender identity, national origin, disability Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor levels. status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We seek applicants with exceptional research achievements and future promise, a commitment to excellence in undergraduate and graduate education in mechanical engineering, and dedication to service and collegiality. Candidates should couple strongly with the department’s core disciplinary strengths in mechanical systems, mechanics of materials, fluid mechanics, and thermal sciences. We seek applicants whose training and future research is strongly rooted NATIONAL TAIWAN UNVERSITY in mechanical engineering, and who work in one of two domains: (1) Robotics Department of Electrical Engineering and Controls; and (2) Scientific Computation, with research that links at least two Faculty Openings of our department’s core disciplinary strengths (listed above) in an integrated, The top choice for the students in natural sciences multidisciplinary manner. In both topic areas, connections with other domains and engineering in Taiwan is inviting you to join (e.g., medicine, design, energy, aerospace, or manufacturing) are also encouraged. us to establish a world-class department. We are seeking candidates with enthusiasm in teaching The Department encourages applicants whose research aligns with the School’s and potential in research, and invite applications new strategic plan (http://www.seas.upenn.edu/PennEngineering2020). for tenure-track/ tenured positions of Professor, For this search, candidates at the Assistant Professor level are preferred; Associate Professor and Assistant Professor. For candidates at higher levels will be considered in exceptional circumstances. more information: http://www.ee.ntu.edu.tw/en The Department maintains strong collaborations with all other engineering departments, the School of Arts and Sciences, the Perelman School of Medicine, the Wharton School of Business, and the School of Design. Our faculty engage strongly with leading centers including the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory, the Penn Institute for Computational Science (PICS), and the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter (LRSM). The Department encourages candidates who can leverage and add to these relationships. Successful candidates will conduct innovative, leading research programs benefiting from Penn’s strong interdisciplinary tradition and One of the most excellent facilities such as the new Singh Center for Nanotechnology. Candidates influential reference who enrich the diversity of our community are strongly encouraged to apply. For resources for engineers full consideration, candidates must apply by Dec. 15, 2016. around the world. The University of Pennsylvania is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and For over 100 years, Proceedings of the IEEE will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual has been the leading journal for engineers orientation, gender identity, creed, national or ethnic origin, citizenship status, looking for in-depth tutorial, survey, and disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. review coverage of the technical developments that shape our world. Applicants should supply a cover letter (up to 2 pages), teaching statement (up to 2 pages), research statement (up to 4 pages, with a 300-word abstract), names and contact information of 4 references, and 4 representative publications. The links to apply for our two searches: (1) Robotics and Controls; and (2) Scientific Computation can be found below. To learn more and start your subscription today, visit Robotics and Controls: ieee.org/proceedings-subscribe http://facultysearches.provost.upenn.edu/postings/958 Scientific Computation: http://facultysearches.provost.upenn.edu/postings/985

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG | north american | Nov 2016 | 75

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76 | nov 2016 | North American | SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

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