The Texas Instruments, Rice Connection: DSP And Beyond

CONTACT:Rice University

Michael Cinelli

(713) 831-4794

Texas Instruments
Gail Chandler
(214) 995-2984
or
Donna Coletti
(713) 274-3361

THE TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, RICE CONNECTION: DSP AND BEYOND

The $7 million cash donation from Texas Instruments to Rice
University is the latest and most visible evidence of the long, well
-established relationship between the two organizations. About 140
TI employees hold degrees from Rice.

But the TI-Rice connection is stronger than that alumni base.
During the past decade, research teams from both organizations have
collaborated on projects which resulted in improved technologies and
applications in the telecommunications field.

For instance:

* In Digital Signal Processing (DSP), the relationship between
TI and Rice began in 1982. John Hayn of Texas Instruments had
discussions with Rice faculty members Sidney Burrus and Thomas
Parks, which led to the agreement in 1983 for the two professors to
write books on DSP chips. These books have been instrumental in
training students in universities around the world about digital
signal processing. During a five-year period, three books were
written, and Burrus and Parks also consulted on FFT algorithms and
digital filter design with members of TI’s DSP department. Currently, Burrus and the DSP group at TI are working with
applications of wavelet technology in signal and image compression
and denoising.

* Rice professors Joseph Cavallaro, Behnaam Aazhang and Ian Walker of the university’s Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering are involved in projects to improve real-time
performance of parallel algorithms for wireless communication
systems and robot control systems. The Rice group has interacted
with Texas Instruments engineers- the results include development of
the next generation of cellular mobile phones and autonomous robots.

* During the past 15 years, the university’s compiler group,
which has included faculty members Ken Kennedy, Keith Cooper, John
Mellor-Crummey and Linda Torczon, as well as Randy Allen, Preston
Briggs and David Callahan, pioneered the analyses and
transformations required for automatic vectorization and
parallelization. The results of their research are used in many
commercial compiler systems. This group has developed a working
relationship with members of TI’s DSP compiler group in Stafford,
Texas. The current generation of DSP compilers that TI sells uses
many algorithms developed at Rice.

* Rice has a history of collaborating with TI in semiconductor
research. Professor Emeritus Franz Brotzen of Rice’s Department of
Materials Science has worked with members of TI’s Semiconductor
group for more than 10 years, investigating a variety of issues
associated with metallic interconnects. Also, William Wilson, Jr., a
professor in electrical and computer engineering, has interacted
with TI on several issues, including the study of the fundamental
characteristics of Fowler-Norheim tunneling currents as they pertain
to the lifetime and reliability of electrically erasable
programmable read-only memories (EEPROMS).

* In other semiconductor-related research, professors Joseph
Cavallaro, Frank Tittel and Wilson-all of the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering-are working on an
interdisciplinary project to improve the manufacturing yield and
efficiency of integrated circuits. The group, working with TI
representatives, has made advances in both experimental laser
microlithography and computer-aided design (CAD). An innovative,
integrated CAD framework has been developed at Rice that identifies,
simulates and analyzes the potential quality of the design mask
pattern.
By using this interactive computer simulation environment,
design and manufacturing engineers can study a new manufacturing
process and optimize the design to introduce new products quickly
and cost-effectively.

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