Three EECS professors win IEEE SSCS Innovative Education Award

EECS Professors Kris Pister, Borivoje Nikolic, and Ali Niknejad have won the IEEE SSCS Innovative Education Award for their pioneering efforts in the creation of an integrated circuit ‘tapeout’ course. The instructors took a cohort of largely undergraduate students from the design phase of a chip to its manufacture all in one semester, and the course has since garnered worldwide attention from educators and industry practitioners alike, inspiring other universities to adopt the format. Since 2020, the course has grown and matured thanks to support from Apple, Inc.

Established in 2019, the Solid-State Circuits Society Innovative Education Award recognizes members who have made “significant contributions to education in the field of solid-state circuits using innovative approaches.”

Kris Pister previously served as CEO and CTO of Dust Networks and has made significant contributions to the field of wireless sensor networks. His primary research interests include MEMS, microrobotics, autonomous microsystems, and low-power circuits.

Borivoje Nikolić is the National Semiconductor Distinguished Professor of Engineering at UC Berkeley and an IEEE Fellow. He has previously been invited as a Distinguished Lecturer and served several times as a committee chair for various IEEE symposiums.

Ali Niknejad is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley, Co-Founder of HMicro, Inventor of the REACH Technology, and Co-Founder of RF Pixels. His research interests include wireless and broadband communications, bio-medical imaging and sensors, integrated circuit technology, device physics, and compact modeling, and applied electromagnetics.