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Faculty-industry ties keep Berkeley Engineering connected to the "real" world
On the surface, they don’t appear to have much in common. One, an internationally renowned microelectronics expert, can be seen dressed impeccably in suit and tie walking purposefully toward his orderly office in Cory Hall. The other, a young faculty member on the cutting edge of a new industry who customarily wears shorts and a T-shirt to work, gravitates curiously toward the window of his fifth-floor office in Cory to watch the bustling construction activity outside.
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Chenming Hu and Kris Pister in Cory Hall
NICK LAMMERS PHOTO |
“For some people it’s terrible. But for me, with four small children, noise is just normal. Plus, I’m an engineer, so it’s good noise: There are people working hard out there.”
In addition to both being Berkeley alumni and EECS faculty members, Chenming Hu and Kris Pister both recently returned from industrial leave, working on projects close to their hearts. Now, both are delighted to be back on campus.
Hu (M.S.’70, Ph.D.’73 EECS) left Berkeley in May 2001 for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, with $8 billion in annual sales. Hu's 32-year career has taken him from Taiwan to two top U.S. engineering schools and back again. A Berkeley faculty member since 1976, he is well known for his research in semiconductor device technology and reliability. He also led the development of the BSIM transistor model, which has become an industry standard and is used in integrated circuit design throughout the world.
“My research has always tended to be on the applied side,” Hu says, “and I wanted to do something for Taiwan because that’s where I got my pre-graduate education.” So, when the second of his two sons left home for college in 2001, he arranged to spend three years with TSMC as chief technology officer. When he left to return to Berkeley last fall, he was lauded for making “a deep impact through the strategic planning and execution of TSMC’s most advanced technologies and management.”
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As the first holder of the TSMC Distinguished Professorship in Microelectronics, Hu already had a connection with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company several years before his leave of absence. During his three years as CTO, he lived in Hsinchu, returning to Berkeley monthly for meetings with his Ph.D. students
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHENMING HU
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In return, Hu says, the experience he gained in corporate decision making in technology, finance, intellectual property, and global dealings was invaluable and of great benefit to his students. When he returned to campus, he picked up where he left off, teaching Integrated Circuit Devices and advanced study seminars and supervising three Ph.D. students.
“I was very happy to get back to classroom teaching and interaction with the students,” says Hu, “but I’d forgotten how hard it is to be a new professor!” His enthusiasm for teaching was recognized in 1997 with the Distinguished Teaching Award, Berkeley’s highest honor for educators.
Pister (M.S.’89, Ph.D.’92 EECS), who joined the Berkeley faculty in 1996, took a two-year leave in 2003 to launch his startup in a converted warehouse in west Berkeley. Based on his “smart dust” technology, Dust Networks is on the cutting edge of a fledgling industry in ubiquitous wireless sensor networks that analysts predict will be a billion-dollar business within 10 years.
“We have the best product out there,” Pister says excitedly, explaining that wireless sensor networks will be used initially in automated monitoring systems for security, fire alarms, and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning in large industrial buildings. The sensors are cheap, he says, and eliminate the significant expense required for wiring such systems.
“There’s a certain adrenaline rush associated with making life or death decisions on a regular basis for your company,” Pister says. “But 2003 was a difficult year. In a down economy it was very stressful to have a lot of employees. They would keep pictures of their kids on their desks to make sure I met payroll.”
But meet payroll he did. With about 50 employees and venture financing secured, Dust Networks began shipping its product to customers last fall. It also received a U.S. Department of Energy grant to create a sensor-based monitoring system that adjusts lighting according to building occupancy. Although he originally planned a one-year leave, it took Pister two to get the technology and infrastructure in good enough shape to hire a CEO so that he could return to his Berkeley faculty position.
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“Berkeley is in my blood,” says Pister (right), accepting congratulations and his master’s degree in 1989 from father Karl (B.S.’45, M.S.’48 CE), a civil engineering faculty member and dean of engineering at the time. Kris’s mother and one of his sisters got education degrees here, and his grandmother attended Berkeley the first year women were admitted.
PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO
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“The university environment is magical. Students and faculty are both here to make things better, and I find that energizing and intoxicating,” Pister says. “That’s why, of all the people who have gone on short-term leave to industry, we’ve lost very few.”
Many EECS faculty members have taken time off to pursue outside research interests, develop entrepreneurial ventures, or establish consulting relationships with larger commercial firms. But few are lured away permanently. In fact, says engineering dean Richard Newton, the ability to pursue such relationships is more often an incentive to stay at Berkeley, since they provide an efficient outlet for faculty to transfer their work to an industrial setting and see it have real impact. Relationships with industry are also essential to keep faculty at the leading edge and thus prevent “ivory tower” syndrome.
“After all, engineering is a profession of practice,” says Newton, who throughout his own career has, at one time or another, consulted for nearly every major U.S. chip company and helped found several design technology companies. “Our students must learn about the state of the art, and things are moving very quickly today. Having an effective working relationship with the very best industries is essential to maintaining our effectiveness as a world leader in teaching and research. These relationships are a lifeline between our faculty—and by extension our students and the entire College—and the industry.”
Hu explains that support for such associations has grown appreciably since the mid-1980s, and he credits the rich interaction between academic research and business applications with thoroughly preparing him for his three years in industry. The robust trend may signal Berkeley’s growing comfort with close industrial collaborations, despite concerns about possible conflict of interest and the lure of big money.
“Now, over almost half a century of affiliations with industry, the College of Engineering has developed an effective way of maximizing the benefit for the University, the faculty, our students and, ultimately, for the companies involved,” says Hu. “It’s a balancing act that must be managed carefully. The most important thing is to have the right checks and balances in place, and I think we have learned how to do that.”
Pister agrees that such alliances are overwhelmingly positive, both for him professionally and for the University as a whole.
“We gain a huge amount of real-world exposure, so the faculty can understand what the issues are out there,” Pister says. “And, from a purely practical standpoint, the ability to get support and raise funds for our research and the departments is dramatically improved through the practical impact of our research. It’s mutually beneficial across the board.”
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