The SSCS DenverChapter recentlycelebrated its first

anniversary, having host-ed regular monthly tech-nical seminars and occa-sional social meetingsthroughout its inauguralyear. Attendance regular-ly exceeded 20 to 35people, especially posi-tive considering that themeetings were sched-uled for Friday after-noons! So far, seminarshave been held at Col-orado State University inFort Collins, Colorado,thanks to the assistanceof Professor Derek Lileof the EE Department.

The Denver Chapterwas founded by Dr.Randy Rannow of Hewlett-Packardand kicked off its inaugural meet-ing on 27 September 2002 with amuch-anticipated DistinguishedLecture on phase noise in LC oscil-lators by UCLA EE Professor AsadAbidi. Since then, invited speakershave covered topics ranging fromcircuit techniques and systems todevice technology trends andinnovations. Following ProfessorAbidi’s talk, Dr. Stan Williams ofHP Labs, Palo Alto, California,gave an inspiring presentation onmolecular electronics and quan-tum computing. The followingmonth, Peter O’Neill of AgilentLabs, Fort Collins, Colorado,shared his perspectives andinsights on IC technology trends.Chapter founder, Dr. Rannow, wassoon transferred to another HPsite—many thanks to him for hisinitiative and efforts.

Chapter activities were continuedby Dr. Don McGrath of LSI Logic andDr. Alvin Loke and Bob Barnes, bothof Agilent Technologies. The firsttechnical activity in 2003 was an edi-torial of ISSCC 2003 papers andtrends, presented by Jay Ackermanand Steve Burnham of LSI Logic andBob Barnes of Agilent Technologies.That was followed by two Distin-guished Lecturer seminars—the firstby Professor Albert Wang of the Illi-nois Institute of Technology, Chica-go, Illinois, who presented novelESD techniques, and the second byDr. Dick Hester of Texas Instru-ments, Dallas, Texas, who taught aninsightful forum on techniques andchallenges of analog front-enddesign for ADSL. In the next month,Chapter Chair, Dr. Don McGrath,presented a well-received tutorial onsigma-delta A/D converters andsummarized his PhD. findings on

applying genetic algo-rithms to optimize sigma-delta designs. Next, Pro-fessors Dragan Maksi-movic and Regan Zanefrom the University ofColorado, Boulder, Col-orado, delivered an infor-mative lecture on digitalcontrol of switchingpower converters andpulse-width modulators.

The Chapter’s mostrecent activity was anoth-er well-received tutorial,this time conducted byDr. Alvin Loke, ChapterSecretary/Webmaster,who lectured on cop-per/low-K interconnectsand electromigration fun-damentals and shared hisperspectives on technol-

ogy trends. Within the year, twowell-attended social events werehosted at a local clubhouse. Mem-bers of the local SSCS chapter andinterested non-members are dis-covering that Fort Collins and itsvicinity are home to a large com-munity of friendly designersengaged in many exciting circuitactivities. We have just conductedannual elections for 2004 at whichtime Tin Tin Wee joined the exist-ing officer team. Here’s to a suc-cessful chapter start!

Please visit our Web site atewh.ieee.org/r5/denver/sscs/ formore information (including pastpresentation slides) about our chap-ter events.

Alvin LokeDenver Chapter Vice Chairalvin.loke@ieee.org

Solid-State Circuits Society Newsletter 19

Newly elected officers from left to right: Alvin Loke, Vice Chair; DonMcGrath, Chair; Bob Barnes, Treasurer; Tin Tin Wee, Secretary/Web-master.

The Denver Chapter Celebrates Its First Anniversary

JSSC Zeitgeist is the spirit of the times sscs.org/jssc/hotreads.htm