Electronic Engineering in the 21st Century

Kenji TANIGUCHI, Yusuke MORI, Takashi SUGINO and Hidemitsu AOKI, Masanori OZAKI, and Tetsuya YAGI (Graduate School of Engineering)

Objective
   This course is organized to introduce selected topics in modern electronics. They include IC Technology for Green IT Era, Academia-industry collaboration and crystal business, Green micro devices for energy saving and harvesting, Electronics based on organic materials, and VLSI inspired by visual systems of the brain.

Lecture Outline
   1."Integrated Circuit Technology for Green IT Era" (Kenji Taniguchi: 4 Weeks)
   The class starts from basic semiconductor devices as a tutorial introduction and provides the knowledge to understand digital, analog and RF circuits which are rapidly penetrating all aspects of our lives. Special emphasis is placed on low power ICs for Green IT.
   2."Collaboration between academia and industry, interdisciplinary collaboration, and startup business that spun off from crystal" (Yusuke Mori: 3 Weeks)
   The process from the discovery of CsLiB6O10 to its industrial application through collaboration with industry, and the technology development of growth of protein crystals and nitride semiconductor crystals are discussed. The sequence of establishment of a spin-off business from the crystal growth technology to grow custom protein crystal, is also reviewed.
   3."Green micro devices for energy saving and energy harvesting" (Takashi Sugino and Hidemitsu Aoki :2 Weeks)
   The class starts from fundamental knowledge to understand green micro electronic devices for energy saving, and energy harvesting devices (various energies are transformed to electronic power) and its process technology
   4."Emerging Electronics Technology based on Organic Materials" (Masanori Ozaki: 3 Weeks)
   The research trends and prospects of emerging organic electronics as a post-Si technology are presented by taking up a liquid crystal display, organic LED, organic FET and plastic solar cell.
   5."Very large scale integrated circuits inspired by visual systems of the brain" (Tetsuya Yagi, 3 weeks)
   The brain computes visual information with a quite different algorithm/architecture from the conventional engineering systems. This lecture introduces a unique technology of designing bio-inspired integrated circuits.

Grading
   Participation in class 50%, Short papers (5 times) 50%