Category: Uncategorized

The Texas Analog Center of Excellence has opened its new 8,000-square-foot labs, paving the way for the $16 million research center’s continued growth.

“One of the things we want to accomplish with this facility is to bring together people from diverse backgrounds to develop technology that people working in one particular discipline couldn’t come up with on their own,” said Dr. Kenneth K. O, director of TxACE and holder of the Texas Instruments Distinguished Chair at UT Dallas, where he is a professor of electrical engineering.

“So we’re going to have not only analog circuit designers but also physicists and bioengineers and others here,” he added, “and we want them all to work together to come up with solutions to some of the great challenges the world faces today.” (more…)

The Texas Analog Center of Excellence at UT Dallas has awarded nearly $1.7 million in grants to Texas researchers to develop new technology for solar cells, biosensors, implantable heart defibrillators and much more.

“The primary theme of these three-year grants is to address grand challenges from the semiconductor industry’s International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors,” said Dr. Eric Vogel, associate director of TxACE and an associate professor of materials science and engineering at UT Dallas. “Addressing the challenges in the ITRS requires circuit design research in three main areas: management and optimization of circuit power and energy, design of robust circuits and design of high-performance circuits.” (more…)

On August 17th, 2010, Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE), a provider of innovative life science solutions, announced a definitive agreement to acquire Ion Torrent for $375 million in cash and stock and an additional $350 million upon the meeting time-based milestones through 2012. Ion Torrent has been building the next generation of fully-electronic and CMOS-based DNA sequencing platforms, a technology which was co-invented by Professor Arjang Hassibi while at Stanford University (US Patent 7,223,540), now an Assistant Professor at The University of Texas at Austin.

This technology has revolutionized DNA sequencing by enabling electronic sequence-by-synthesis analysis through the use of IC technology. Ion Torrent’s proprietary CMOS-based method has created a new paradigm in DNA sequencing by using PostLight(TM) sequencing technology, the first of its kind to eliminate the cost and complexity associated with the extended optical detection currently used in all other DNA sequencers.

This is not the first attempt to commercialize Professor Hassibi’s invention. In 2001 he co-founded Xagros Genomics, Inc. to commercialize CMOS-based sequencers, but the startup was unable to overcome some of the technical challenges, something that Ion Torrent was able to address this time.

For more information on Ion Torrent, go to:
http://www.iontorrent.com/

For more information on Professor Hassibi’s research, go to:
http://www.cerc.utexas.edu/~arjang/

UT Dallas and Agilent Technologies Inc. are establishing a facility at the Texas Analog Center of Excellence (TxACE) to bolster development of semiconductors that offer applications in everything from scanning people for weapons to monitoring air quality and enabling aircraft to operate more safely in poor weather conditions.

The electronics characterization facility, which will be available to industrial and government institutions using a collaborative framework, will focus on the emerging field of millimeter- and submillimeter-wave semiconductor technology.

“One of TxACE’s key goals is to help enable the emergence of silicon millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave integrated circuits for industry,” said Ken O, director of TxACE and holder of the Texas Instruments Distinguished Chair at UT Dallas, where he is a professor of electrical engineering. “With a facility of this type in a university environment, critical barriers will be removed for research in this challenging measurement area.” (more…)

Researchers at UT Dallas have received $690,000 to pursue four projects intended to produce higher-efficiency lighting,  advanced imaging technology and new generations of sensor technology.

“The focus of all these projects is circuit- and/or system-level techniques that further the state of the art of modern integrated circuits,” said Kenneth K. O, director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence, which awarded the grants.

Each project includes at least one collaborator from Texas Instruments, and each effort focuses on making use of analog technology. (more…)

The Texas Analog Center of Excellence at UT Dallas has awarded nearly $3 million to Texas researchers to develop analog technology that enhances public safety and security.

The projects funded by the grants are intended to:

• Enable a new generation of devices that can scan for harmful substances such as explosives and chemical agents by researching 200-300-GHz silicon integrated circuits for use in spectrometers.
• Significantly reduce the cost of in-vehicle radar technology that could help improve automotive safety by researching circuit techniques that can improve manufacturing and lower test and packaging costs.

“We’re excited to announce this first round of funding, which will be followed by another round early next year focused on medical, health and energy-independence technology,” said Dr. Kenneth O, director of TxACE. “We are committed to being a catalyst for technology development in key areas of importance.” (more…)

Texas Governor Rick Perry has announced a $16 million collaboration among academia, industry and government that will create the Texas Analog Center of Excellence, TxACE, at the University of Texas at Dallas.

The research center will help create leading-edge analog technology for both traditional electronics and emerging applications. It’s a collaborative effort by the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC), the state, Texas Instruments Inc., the UT System and UT Dallas.

The collaboration will focus on research in analog and radio frequency technologies to help address some of the world’s biggest challenges in such areas as energy efficiency, health care and public safety. The results should enable mixed-signal integrated circuits for state-of-art applications in a wide range of wired and wireless electronics, benefiting markets and people worldwide. (more…)