I am glad to report that the number of SSCS chapters has grown from 10 to 13 in the last quarter. It is a pleasure to extend a warm welcome to our newest members: Benelux, UK/Republic of Ireland, and Switzerland, all in Region 8. I would like to thank the founding members and in particular the chapter chairs whose continuous efforts and commitment will ensure their chapters' success. Dr. Michiel Steyaert is heading the Benelux chapter, Dr. Michael Kennedy is the chair of the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland chapter, and Dr. Qiuting Huang leads the Switzerland chapter. See Dr. Peter Kennedy's report Celtic Tiger Embraces Circuit Design.
It is my goal, as chapter coordinator, to work with all the chapter chairs to support their activities and growth efforts. In addition, I'd like to work with any SSCS member who is interested in forming a chapter. We will provide you with an information packet that includes guidelines on the formation of a new chapter, and membership statistics in your local section. It is the Society's goal to have about 50 chapters in five years' time, a plan that will obviously require substantial effort.
Subsidies have been distributed to the following chapters: Boston ($1,000), Chicago ($138), Finland ($1,000), Taipei ($1,000), and Tokyo ($1,000). Support for the chapters in Baltimore, Korea and Yugoslavia was distributed through the Electron Device Society, as these are joint EDS - SSCS chapters. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the deadline for applying for chapter subsidies for the coming year is July 28,1999. Applications can be made by sending a letter to the SSCS Executive Director sscs@ieee.org describing the activities the proposed funds will support, any existing sources of funding for the activities, a budget - including the specific amount requested from SSCS - and the anticipated benefits for the Chapter SSCS and IEEE. The newly formed chapters can still apply for support for the current year. This should be done as soon as possible.
I am glad to report that all chapters are very active in organizing professional activities that benefit their memberships. Space does not allow me to mention them all. Among them is the Analog VLSI Workshop in Tapei, Taiwan, May 5 to 7, 1999, co-sponsored by the Tapei chapter. Also the chapter in Tokyo is co-sponsoring a VDEC Designer's Forum which will be held at the end of 1999.
In order to increase support for chapters, the IEEE has developed a Chapter Home Page: http://www.ieee.org/ra/scs and http://www.ieee.org/tab/ciaindex.html with the goal of providing a centralized forum for access to chapter-related documents, programs, services, contact information and tools for chapter development. This page is in addition to the SSCS Chapter web page http://www.sscs.org/info/society/chapter.htm which provides society- specific chapter inforination.
For information about chapter formation or chapter subsidies, please consult the SSCS home page or contact Anne O'Neill, Executive Director SSCS, sscs@ieee.org
Michael Peter Kennedy,
Interim Chair,
Ireland Chapter
mpk@nebula.ucd.ie
Ireland, the so-called Celtic Tiger, has the fastest-growing high-tech economy in Europe. A significant factor in the country's increasing prosperity is its integrated circuit design industry, which now employs over five hundred designers in twenty-two different multinational and indigenous start-ups.
Attracted by a highly skilled workforce and a favorable tax regime, US multinationals such as Analog Devices, which pioneered circuit design in Ireland in 1976, have been joined in recent years by Cadence, Cypress, Lucent, Motorola, Nortel, 3COM, and Xilinx.
The map, prepared by Colin Lyden of the NMRC, shows the distribution
of
IC design companies in Ireland over five population centers:
Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Galway, and Limerick.
One of the newest arrivals (mid-1998) is Motorola, whose Irish design center is focusing on RF and Mixed Signal IC design for the wireless market. "We decided that one of the best places in the world to strategically grow IC design talent was Ireland," says John Quigley of Motorola. "This decision was driven by the evident quality of the academic institutions within Ireland as seen by the design engineers in the workforce."
One such academic institution is the National Microelectronics Research Centre (NMRC), founded in 1982, which has grown much of the native talent in the IC industry.
Among the earliest local start-ups is Silicon and Software Systems (S3), which was founded in 1986 by a former Philips employee, Maurice Whelan, to exploit local engineering talent. S3 is now one of the largest independent design centers in the world and a market leader in providing leading edge integrated circuits, software, and hardware systems solutions to the global electronics industry.
Irish-owned SSL, founded in 1993, has become one of the world's leading developers of System on a Chip solutions, with over one hundred and fifty design engineers having core expertise in Mixed Signal, DSP, and RF. Recognizing the importance of its IEEE profile, the company's designs have been presented at ISSCC, ESSCIRC, and in JSSC. In addition, SSLŐs Sean Killeen is Co-Chairman and Editor of the IEEE P1394b Task Group which has responsibility for the development of a key portion of the IEEE 1394 standard.
In an effort to increase the number and quality of technical events related to IC design in Ireland, members of the Solid State Circuits Society, in collaboration with the IEE, organized a colloquium on "Systems on a Chip" at University College Dublin in September, at which the keynote address was delivered by Willy Sansen, and a decision was taken to start a local Chapter of the IEEE SSC Society. The Ireland Chapter was formally activated in December 1998.