[UW logo]

Daily Bulletin

Monday, September 22, 1997

University of Waterloo -- Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Friday's Bulletin | Previous days | UWevents | UWinfo home page

New chair in sensor technology

UW's newest "industrial research chair" is to be launched today: a chair in "sensor technology" to be held by Arokia Nathan of the electrical and computer engineering department. It's jointly sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Information Technology Research Centre, Dalsa Inc., and UW, to the tune of $1,725,000 over five years.

Launch ceremonies are being held in the Davis Centre lounge beginning at 3:00 this afternoon.

Nathan has been working for more than 10 years in modelling, design, fabrication and characterization of silicon sensors. "Sensors are a crucial component of any information-processing system," he explains. "They enable electronic acquisition of analog information from the real world for subsequent conversion to digital form that can be post-processed and transmitted."

[Microchip clean room] The new "chair" will give UW two new faculty positions and provide the resources necessary for a minimum of four graduate students, a postdoctoral fellow and a part-time senior-level technologist. The work they do will focus on the innovative amorphous silicon (a-Si) thin film technology developed at UW's microelectronics chip fabrication facility, pictured here. "This research offers significant cost advantages for improved imaging of optical signals and high-energy radiation," Nathan says.

A former colleague of Nathan's in the ECE department is Savvas Chamberlain, who is now president of Dalsa, a UW spinoff firm that now employs more than 170 people. Dalsa is described as a leader in the design, development, manufacture and marketing of image sensor and electronic camera products based on the company's high-performance image capture charge-coupled device (CCD) technology.

Dalsa's electronic cameras provide advanced technological solutions for "industrial vision applications" such as postal inspection and sorting, office document and cheque or banknote scanning, and inspections of semiconductors, electronics, glass bottles, textiles and other products. UW researchers are already working with Dalsa on joint research projects and contracts, and in student training through co-op programs as well as in the use of design equipment and optical laboratories by graduate students.

"This program is part of Dalsa's long-term commitment to support university pre-competitive research," Chamberlain says. "In the long term, we expect this collaborative research project to lead to the generation of amorphous silicon devices and fabrication technology. Further, this project will produce highly skilled engineers in the semiconductor devices area."

"Information technology is an area of important national interest," says James Downey, UW president. "Luckily, as Dalsa brilliantly illustrates, Canadians and Canadian companies seem to be very adept at developing IT hardware and software. We like to think that the University of Waterloo, through the people we have educated and the research that has been commercialized, has played an important role in the building of this national capacity."

Electronic forms are available

Grant application forms from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council -- forms "100" and "101" -- are available electronically now, which will come as good news to people in a number of academic departments. Jan Willwerth of information systems and technology gives a little explanation:
UW (along with the other Ontario universities) has purchased JetForm Filler, Version 5.0, software so that electronic versions of the granting applications from SSHRC, MRC, Health Canada, Heart and Stroke Foundation and NSERC can be filled in and either printed or sent directly to the granting agencies. NSERC was the only granting agency that had not put an electronic version of their grant application out on the web. They did this last night and the grant deadlines are drawing near.
The forms are available on the PCdepot operated by IST (instructions available).

The talk of the campus

It's the last day of summer, and the sun is shining, although there's sure a nip in the air. All the leaves on all the trees will turn red and gold at 7:56 tonight precisely, as autumn officially begins.

It wasn't a great weekend for Waterloo sports teams, as all the scores I have on hand so far represent losses for the Warriors and Athenas:

In the game of politics, it appears that the latest result is public sector unions 1, government of Ontario no score, although the season isn't over. Thursday's statement by labour minister Elizabeth Witmer seems to represent agreement with most of the union demands for changes in Bill 136. Among the union leaders following the events closely is Neil Stewart, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees local 793 here at Waterloo. The folks at CUPE headquarters are eager to see the details of Witmer's planned amendments before coming to conclusions, he said Friday, "They want to see it in writing -- then we'll take it from there."

Happening today and tomorrow

Teams of Waterloo math students have triumphed a few times over the years in the Putnam Competition, and it could happen again this year. There's an organizational meeting tonight -- 7:00, Math and Computer room 5158 -- for students who might be interested. "Food and drink will be provided," says coach Chris Small of the statistics and actuarial science department. "We will also organize weekly training sessions in mathematical problem solving as a preparation for the Putnam contest." Can't come to the meeting? Small at cgsmall@setosa has more information.

A volunteer fair tomorrow in the Student Life Centre, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., will offer information about some 35 community agencies and nine on-campus volunteer groups. Everybody's welcome to drop by. (Check tomorrow's Bulletin for a full list of the agencies involved.)

And here's a reminder that Communitech, "Kitchener-Waterloo's community technology association", is launching its promised series of "networking lunches and presentations" with an event tomorrow at noontime. Speaker is Peter Mabson, a vice-president of ComDev "responsible for finding and creating new products and applications for the highly competitive aerospace industry", who will talk about his experience in launching high-tech products. The event will be held at Bingemans Conference Centre in Kitchener; tickets are $25, with students getting a special $10 rate; phone 888-9944.

CAR

TODAY IN UW HISTORY
September 21, 1966: "The Black and White and Gold" is introduced as UW's school song. September 21, 1975: The sculpture "Convolution", better known on campus as "the worm", is removed by vandals from its site between Physics and the Dana Porter Library. September 21, 1988: Former cabinet minister (and future prime minister) Jean Chrétien speaks in the Physical Activities Complex.

September 22, 1972: The library adds its 500,000th book, The Stature of Dickens by English professor Joseph Gold. September 22, 1982: History professor Leo Johnson appears in court on charges of indecent assault and related offences.

Editor of the Daily Bulletin: Chris Redmond
Information and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca -- (519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
Comments to the editor | About the Bulletin | Friday's Bulletin
Copyright © 1997 University of Waterloo