PSU Magazine Spring 2004

~ome will look back on the sum– mer of 2004 as the time when the Olympics returned to Athens. Others will remember the presidential race between John Kerry and George Bush. For Bob Dryden it will forever be the time when the cranes and trucks arrived, the hammers began swinging, and the College of Engineering and Computer Science took another giant leap into the future. Dryden, dean of the college, has been dreaming of this since the late '90s, when he took on an ambitious expansion plan for the college. The expansion means more labs, more stu– dents, and an ever-stronger relationship with Oregon's high-tech community. And in the most tangible sense, it means construction of a signature building in the Northwest Center for Engineering, Science and Technology. mryden's dream received the financial equivalent of a booster rocket in March when Fariborz Maseeh, 45 , a PSU graduate who went on to establish a high-tech company in Massachusetts, presented the college with $8 million, the largest gift in Portland State's history. Of the $8 million, $6 million will support construction of the new build– ing and continued renovation of engi– neering's current facilities. One million dollars will establish two professor– ships, one to be known as the Maseeh Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the other in an area of emerging technology. The remaining $1 million will be split between five student fellowships and the endowment of a fund honor– ing the founding dean of the college, H. Chik M. Erzurumlu. The college itself and an auditorium within the Northwest Center will be named for Maseeh. The new building has long been the cornerstone of the college's expansion plans. It will nearly triple available space, including a near doubling of lab facilities-a continuation of a push by the college that began in the past decade. The Integrated Circuits Design and Test Laboratory was built in 2000-with financial backing by Credence Systems-to test circuits for clients remotely through Internet2. 10 PSU MAGAZINE SPRING 2004 Engineering the future A record-breaking gift will help transform the College of Engineering and Computer Science. By John Kirkland It was the only one of its kind in the nation at the time. The college built the Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab to help government agencies make traffic flow faster, smoother, and more safely. In 2000 it opened the Chemical Mechanical Planarization Laboratory– the only one of its kind outside the East Coast-to develop new kinds of wafer polishing technologies. lt also built a Cybersecurity Laboratory to study secure mobile networks and computer and telecommunication security issues. The federal govern– ment's National Security Agency desig– nated it a "Center of Academic Excellence. " The labs are as important to private companies and government agencies as they are to students and faculty. A group of about 50 local companies meet at the cybersecurity lab on a regu lar basis to discuss security issues that affect their industries. Transporta– tion lab researchers collaborate with the Oregon Department of Transporta– tion , the city of Portland, Tri-Met, county governmems, state and local police, Washington agencies, and 911 responders. Perhaps the tightest link between the college and industry is the Inte– grated Circuits Design and Test Lab. The initial collaboration with Credence Systems has evolved into a relationship with LSI Logic, one of Credence's largest customers. On 2003 , PSU moved beyond just working with outside companies and entered into a direct business relation– ship with Octavian Scientific, Inc., a semiconductor equipment start-up. The company is housed in the Fourth Avenue Building, where employees have access to faculty and the integrated cir– cuits lab. PSU receives stock in Octavian in exchange for rights to technologies that the company develops. "By having Octavian with us, our people can walk down the hall and talk to people who have 40 years' experi– ence in circuit testing," Dryden says. Soon, the space adjacent to Octavian will be renovated , allowing Octavian to bring in integrated circuit process ·