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An EDS initiative to present short courses independently of EDS conferences debuted July 27 in Austin, Texas. Under the new Vanguard Series of independent short courses, UCLA Professor Asad Abidi delivered a 6-hour course on "Circuit Designs and Technology for RF-CMOS."
Two more courses will be delivered in October. "Overview of Fiber Optic Communications" will be taught by Prof. Joe Campbell, University of Texas, on October 11 in San Jose, California. Dr. Sanjay Banerjee, director of the Microelectronics Lab at the University of Texas will present "Device, Circuit, and Reliability Modeling for Silicon Industry" on October 19 in Austin, Texas.
According to the EDS President Cary Yang, the content of these new one-day courses will be tailored to experienced engineers who are looking for a short burst of intense information on the latest technologies. Courses are designed to help EDS members and other short course participants stay abreast of current developments in various cutting-edge subjects related to devices and circuits.
University of Illinois, Professor I. Adesida, chair of the society's Educational Activities Committee and the Short Course Subcommittee, plans to present at least four new courses next year, including one to be held in Singapore just prior to the mid-year EDS AdCom meeting.
To make the courses more attractive to industry participants, live courses are being offered in locations having a concentration of semiconductor-related industries. By targeting the local population, the goal is to minimize registrants' travel costs and time away from the office. Four target areas that have been identified in the U.S. are Austin, Portland, Silicon Valley and L.A.-San Diego.
In addition to capturing live presentations on videotape, the opportunity to access these one-day courses from the Web is being explored.
While plans are still being formulated, the goal is to deliver the courses via the Web and keeping content fresh by updating periodically. In addition, some courses may be offered in the more traditional mechanism via video. Pricing for both the web-based and the videotaped courses has yet to be determined. However, EDS is offering the live courses at $495 for IEEE members ($450 student members) and $595 for non-members.
The Short Course Subcommittee members within the EDS Educational Activities Committee include: I. Adesida (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL), Chair; K. S. Chari (Electronics Niketan, New Dehli, India); Magali Estrada Del Cueto (CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico); Yoshiaki Hagiwara (Sony Corporation, Tokyo, Japan); Margaret Huang (Motorola, Mesa, AZ); Stephen Parke (Boise State Univ., Boise, ID); Emily Sopensky (The Iris Company, Austin, TX); Sunit Tyagi (Intel, Hillsboro, OR); Jason Woo (UCLA, Los Angeles, CA).
For more information on these new short courses, please e-mail Emily Sopensky e.sopensky@ieee.org or call toll free 877-566-IEEE (4333). See also the webpage at www.ieee.org/eds/shortcourses.
Emily A. Sopensky
The Iris Company
Austin, TX