Giovanni De Micheli

Professor and Director
Institute of Electrical Engineering
Integrated Systems Centre
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland
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Thursday, 17 December 2009 (10h00-10h45), EPFL Polydôme

Electrical Engineering at a crossroad: challenges and opportunities

Traditional teaching and research in EE is facing a changing scenario. For various reasons - including the consolidation in the semicon industry - there is a reduced interest in microelectronic design per se. Nevertheless, applications of microelectronics to areas such as Energy, Health and Environment are in high demand. In this space, sensors, MEMS and their integration into semiconductor platforms is very important. Moreover, new nanotechnologies (e.g., silicon nanowire and carbon electronics) show interesting potentials to extend silicon functionality especially along the More than Moore avenue.

This shift brings to the table important questions for teaching and research. While EE departments must keep up expertise on core technology, they have also to branch out to other terrains. The balancing act is not easy to achieve (within budget constraints) and the role of interdiscipline studies is crucial. More than ever, the synergy with computer science and with the basic (physics, biology, chemistry) sciences is important. At the same time, we should not denature the role of EE and be able to project its image (as a single and multifaceted discipline) to attract the best students and researchers.

About the speaker:

Giovanni De Micheli is Professor and Director of the Institute of Electrical Engineering and of the Integrated Systems Centre at EPFL, Switzerland. He also chairs the Scientific Committee of CSEM, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Previously, he was Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He holds a Nuclear Engineer degree (Politecnico di Milano, 1979), a M.Sc. and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (University of California, Berkeley, 1980 and 1983.

His research interests include several aspects of design technologies for integrated circuits and systems, such as synthesis, hw/sw codesign and low-power design, as well as systems on heterogeneous platforms including electrical, optical, micromechanical and biological components. He is author of: Synthesis and Optimization of Digital Circuits, McGraw-Hill, 1994, co-author and/or co-editor of six other books and of over 300 technical articles. He is, or has been, member of the technical advisory board of several companies, including Magma Design Automation, Coware, Aplus Design Technologies, Ambit Design Systems and STMicroelectronics. He is also a founding member of the ALaRI institute at Universita' della Svizzera Italiana (USI), in Lugano, Switzerland, where he is currently scientific counselor.

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