In the past four months, the SSCS Denver Chapter hosted meetings spanning technology, device, reliability, and design topics. In December 2004, newly elected chapter chair Dr. Alvin Loke of Agilent Technologies presented a tutorial on deep submicron CMOS device technology and its impact on circuit design. Dr. Loke summarized the importance of understanding the impact of effects such as halo implants, active area mechanical stress, and well implant mask proximity as well as limitations in IC manufacturing to successfully design analog circuits in deep submicron CMOS.

This set the stage for a follow-on tutorial on IC intrinsic reliability fundamentals presented by Dr. Dennis Eaton of Agilent Technologies. In early March 2005, Dr. Rich Ruby of Agilent Technologies delivered a fascinating talk on film bulk acoustic resonators (FBARs) that have gained substantial penetration as high-Q duplexers in cell phones. In addition to explaining fundamentals and key aspects of FBAR integration, Dr. Ruby also provided a very insightful editorial on the geopolitical battles and key players in the cell phone industry.

Our most recent event was a technical forum on Intel's latest Itanium processor, code-named Montecito, which drew a crowd exceeding 100. Multiple-core processors was the key theme in this year's ISSCC session on processors, and we were fortunate to have Sam Naffziger, Patrick Mahoney, Ben Patella, and Jim Ignowski of Intel, Fort Collins, present a total of four papers that were recently delivered at ISSCC in San Francisco. They shared overviews of Itanium's dual-core architecture and elucidated their clock distribution strategy, as well as their sophisticated power and thermal management control systems.

Technical Forum on Intel Itanium Processor

L to R: Jeff Brisnehan (newly elected University Relations Officer), Alvin Loke (Chair), Sam Naffziger, Patrick Mahoney, Ben Patella, Jim Ignowski, Bob Barnes (Treasurer), and Tin Tin Wee (Secretary/Webmaster)

The chapter officers were also involved in community service, serving once again as science fair judges at Harris Bilingual Elementary in Fort Collins. First place went to a project that systematically investigated the effectiveness of household cleaning agents.

To establish a tighter relationship in order to sponsor activities with Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Jeff Brisnehan of Agilent Technologies was recently elected to the officers team to support University Relations.

We look forward to growing participation in upcoming seminars. Please visit our web site at ewh.ieee.org/r5/denver/sscs/ for more information about our chapter events, including past presentation slides.