The Integrator 2024–2025
Read the latest issue of The Integrator, UW ECE’s flagship annual magazine highlighting the Department’s extraordinary faculty and student research, achievements, alumni stories, special events and more from this past year!
https://www.ece.uw.edu/spotlight/the-integrator-2024-2025/
https://www.ece.uw.edu/spotlight/kim-ingraham-faculty-profile-2024/
Kim Ingraham — engineering assistive robotic devices for people with disabilities
UW ECE Assistant Professor Kim Ingraham designs personalized, adaptive control strategies for assistive robotic devices, such as exoskeletons and powered wheelchairs. Her work brings people together from different backgrounds to produce more usable assistive robotic devices.
https://www.ece.uw.edu/spotlight/3d-imaging-for-detecting-lung-cancer/
A new, 3D-imaging system for early detection of lung cancer
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni and graduate students in his lab are part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team developing a new, three-dimensional imaging system for early detection of lung cancer.
https://www.ece.uw.edu/spotlight/max-parsons-2024-faculty-profile/
Max Parsons — engineering quantum technology while making state-of-the-art hardware more accessible for research and education
UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons develops cold atom systems for quantum computing, sensing, and communication. He also directs the QT3 Lab, providing unique research opportunities for students.
https://www.ece.uw.edu/spotlight/chip-design-at-uw-ece/
Designing next-generation chips at UW ECE
UW ECE faculty are leaders in microchip design and are known internationally for their creative, interdisciplinary approaches to chip design and development.
https://www.ece.uw.edu/spotlight/uw-ece-is-hiring-3/
UW ECE is Hiring!
UW ECE is inviting applications for tenure-track associate and assistant professor positions.
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Read the latest issue of The Integrator, UW ECE’s flagship annual magazine highlighting the Department’s extraordinary faculty and student research, achievements, alumni stories, special events and more from this past year!
Kim Ingraham — engineering assistive robotic devices for people with disabilities
UW ECE Assistant Professor Kim Ingraham designs personalized, adaptive control strategies for assistive robotic devices, such as exoskeletons and powered wheelchairs. Her work brings people together from different backgrounds to produce more usable assistive robotic devices.
A new, 3D-imaging system for early detection of lung cancer
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni and graduate students in his lab are part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team developing a new, three-dimensional imaging system for early detection of lung cancer.
Max Parsons — engineering quantum technology while making state-of-the-art hardware more accessible for research and education
UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons develops cold atom systems for quantum computing, sensing, and communication. He also directs the QT3 Lab, providing unique research opportunities for students.
Designing next-generation chips at UW ECE
UW ECE faculty are leaders in microchip design and are known internationally for their creative, interdisciplinary approaches to chip design and development.
UW ECE is Hiring!
UW ECE is inviting applications for tenure-track associate and assistant professor positions.
To read previous issues of The Integrator, click here.
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[post_content] => Article by Wayne Gillam, photos by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE News
[caption id="attachment_35913" align="alignright" width="550"]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Kim Ingraham designs personalized, adaptive control strategies for assistive robotic devices, such as exoskeletons and powered wheelchairs. Her work involves bringing students and faculty from different backgrounds and disciplines together to move toward a common goal of producing more usable assistive robotic devices for people with disabilities.[/caption]
Millions of people have seen the Iron Man movies, in which the main character is empowered by a robotic exoskeleton. And millions more have watched the scene in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker receives a mechanical, touch-sensitive prosthetic hand that is wired into his nervous system. Because exoskeletons and smart prosthetics actually exist today, many might assume that we are only a few steps away from bringing this advanced technology we see on the movie screen into people’s everyday lives.
But the reality is that implementation of smart prosthetic systems and wearable robotics, such as exoskeletons, is not that simple. Robotic and mechanical systems can do some amazing things on their own, as this Boston Dynamics video demonstrates. But once a human being is brought into the equation, with all the complexities the human brain and body entail, it is a different story. What might appear on the surface to be a straightforward matter of creating a human-robot interface is, in reality, a difficult and complex engineering problem.
UW ECE Assistant Professor Kim Ingraham is addressing this multifaceted challenge in her lab, where she designs personalized, adaptive control strategies for exoskeletons and powered wheelchairs for young children. Her work is primarily aimed at creating usable assistive robotic devices for people with disabilities, and it is highly interdisciplinary, drawing tools and knowledge from robotics and controls, neural engineering, biomechanics, and machine learning.
"UW ECE is such a strong department in my research area. It’s a national leader in neural engineering as well as robotics and controls. And my work sits at the intersection of those two areas.” — UW ECE Assistant professor Kim Ingraham
Ingraham is also co-author of a new paper in the journal Nature, which examines ways to optimize and customize robotic assistive technologies built with humans in the device control and feedback loop. The paper brings together researchers from around the world who are working on human-in-the-loop optimization for assistive robotics. It explores over a decade of scientific research in the field, defines some of the key challenges, and highlights some of the current work being done in this area. Ingraham’s contribution to the paper draws from her doctoral research estimating energy cost using wearable sensors and including human preference as an evaluation metric for assistive robots.
“The fundamental challenge in the field is that historically we have studied the way humans naturally move and then we have built robots that can mimic that movement. But when the human is wearing the robot and they’re both in the control loop at the same time, we have to figure out ways for those systems to successfully interact,” Ingraham said. “Understanding and designing for the complexity of the interactions between the robot and the human is one of the big gaps that we still have to address.”
To help close these sorts of knowledge gaps, Ingraham oversees several different research projects that study and develop personalized, adaptive control strategies for assistive robotic devices. Although she is focused on designing assistive technologies for rehabilitation or for people with disabilities, she also works with augmentative devices, such as exoskeletons for nondisabled people, to better understand how robotic assistance impacts human motion. The engineering knowledge she gains from this research helps to inform her work and enables her team to design better device controllers.
An interdisciplinary path leads to UW ECE
[caption id="attachment_35916" align="alignright" width="500"]
Ingraham helps UW ECE doctoral student Zijie Jin put on a Biomotum SPARK ankle exoskeleton for an experiment in the UW Amplifying Movement & Performance Lab. This experiment is designed to help better understand how robotic assistance from an exoskeleton affects how participants walk, how much energy they consume, and how they feel while using the device.[/caption]
As an undergraduate student in her freshman year at Vanderbilt University, Ingraham participated in an Alternative Spring Break program, which took place at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, a rehabilitation facility for people with disabilities. There, she was exposed to technology that supported people’s mobility and other activities in their lives, such as a powered wheelchair with an attached, adaptive knitting setup that allowed the user to knit using only one hand. The experience inspired Ingraham, and she became excited about the idea of using engineering skills to build assistive technologies.
In 2012, after receiving her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering, she went on to apply to graduate schools. Unfortunately, she wasn’t admitted on her first attempt. She said this was not because she didn’t have good grades or research experience, but because she lacked an understanding of what she calls the “hidden curriculum” required for graduate school admission. According to Ingraham, this hidden curriculum includes acquiring a deeper understanding of the graduate admissions process as well as finding effective ways to demonstrate solid academic ability and research experience.
She moved on to secure a position as a research engineer at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), where she worked from 2012 to 2015. It was there, in a hospital research setting, that Ingraham gained the knowledge and skills she needed to make it into graduate school.
“I learned everything at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. I had an absolutely phenomenal mentor, Annie Simon, and the director of our group was Levi Hargrove, and they were both incredibly supportive,” Ingraham said. “In particular, Annie taught me how to be a good researcher. She taught me things like how to conduct a good experiment, how to write a good paper, and how to be a really compassionate mentor while still maintaining high expectations.”
After three years at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Ingraham applied to graduate school again. This time, she was admitted to the University of Michigan, where she went on to earn her master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering in 2021.
Ingraham’s interdisciplinary background ended up leading her to the UW and to UW ECE. From 2021 to 2023, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the UW Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences, known as CREATE, with advisers in mechanical engineering and rehabilitation medicine. Toward the end of her fellowship, a colleague encouraged her to apply for an open faculty position at UW ECE because it appeared to be a good fit for her background.
“I originally thought, ‘I’m not in ECE, that doesn’t make any sense.’ But then, I started looking more in depth at the faculty and really saw how UW ECE is such a strong department in my research area,” Ingraham said. “It’s a national leader in neural engineering as well as robotics and controls. And my work sits at the intersection of those two areas.”
With that in mind, Ingraham applied, and in January 2023, she became a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department.
Research projects and collaborations
[caption id="attachment_35920" align="alignleft" width="500"]
A closeup of the Biomotum SPARK ankle exoskeleton. This device is adjustable and can be worn by children or adults.[/caption]
Ingraham’s research at UW ECE involves bringing students and faculty from different backgrounds and disciplines together to move toward a common goal of producing more usable assistive robotic devices. The ECE doctoral students in her lab have degrees from a wide range of disciplines, including chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, neuroscience, and anthropology. Ingraham said she believes this diversity of backgrounds highlights the Department’s general philosophy of expanding the definition of who can be an ECE doctoral student. She also said that these students bring multiple perspectives that contribute to her research, and they are thriving in the UW ECE doctoral program.
Ingraham collaborates with faculty in UW ECE and from different departments across the University on a wide range of research projects. She is also a core faculty member in the Amplifying Movement & Performance Lab, an interdisciplinary, experimental lab shared by faculty from the UW College of Engineering and the UW Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. One aim of her research in the AMP Lab is to design adaptive algorithms for exoskeletons. To this end, she is collaborating with UW ECE Associate Professor Sam Burden to develop game theory algorithms to customize robotic assistance from an ankle exoskeleton. In another project at the AMP Lab, she is collaborating with UW ECE Professor Chet Moritz, who holds joint appointments in rehabilitation medicine, physiology, and biophysics, and is co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology. Ingraham and Moritz are working to combine transcutaneous (on the surface of the skin) spinal stimulation with exoskeleton assistance. This is groundbreaking work primarily for adults with spinal cord injury. She is also building on her postdoctoral work at CREATE by studying how early access to powered mobility devices impacts development, language, and movement in young children. It is research that involves the “Explorer Mini,” a small, colorful, joystick-controlled, powered mobility device for toddlers. In this work, Ingraham is collaborating with her previous postdoctoral advisers, professors Kat Steele in mechanical engineering and Heather Feldner in rehabilitation medicine.
Ingraham noted that she appreciates the interdisciplinary opportunities UW ECE provides.
“Something I really value about being in our Department is how interdisciplinary it is, how someone with a nontraditional background like myself can still have an intellectual home in the ECE department, just because of how many areas ECE touches,” Ingraham said. “It was the people and research strengths that got me excited about UW ECE. I wouldn’t necessarily belong in every ECE department, but UW ECE is a really awesome fit for me.”
Work as an educator
[caption id="attachment_35922" align="alignright" width="500"]
Ingraham examines experimental biomechanics data with UW ECE doctoral student Annika Pfister as displayed by an open-source musculoskeletal modeling and simulation platform called “OpenSim.” This data was collected from a participant with a spinal cord injury who was walking. Ingraham is pointing out to Pfister the angle of the participant’s ankle onscreen[/caption]
Ingraham teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at UW ECE. She also leads a capstone course that includes both undergraduate and graduate students, the Neural Engineering Tech Studio. This is a cross-disciplinary course in UW ECE and the bioengineering department, facilitated by the Center for Neurotechnology. In the course, students design engineering prototypes based on neural engineering principles. The experience is structured to help teach students entrepreneurship skills as well as a user-centric thought process.
“I like teaching very applied courses,” Ingraham said. “I like it when students can see how what we’re doing in the classroom actually matters for real-world applications, how it manifests in research, industry, and technology we use every day.”
In addition to her duties as a researcher and an instructor, Ingraham is also chair of the UW ECE Colloquium committee. The Department’s Research Colloquium Lecture Series features research talks given by experts in electrical and computer engineering. Ingraham said that she and the committee are working hard not only to bring people in from across the nation to give these talks but also to build community in the Department through the lecture events.
For students interested in pursuing a career in robotics, Ingraham recommended learning the mathematical foundations of the field as early as possible. After gaining a firm grasp of the fundamentals, she said it was then important to find a niche within an application area to focus on. For Ingraham, that niche is assistive robotic technologies, and she noted how her professional goals and personal interests converge in this area.
“From a scientific perspective, I’m really interested in understanding how humans and wearable robots co-adapt to each other,” Ingraham said. “From a human point of view, I would really like to achieve the translation of our research into robotic systems that help people in meaningful ways — systems that can be adapted, personalized, and give people more choices in how they move around the world.”
For more information about UW ECE Assistant Professor Kim Ingraham, read her recent paper in Nature, and visit her faculty bio page or lab website.
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[post_content] => Article by Wayne Gillam, Photos by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE News
[caption id="attachment_35764" align="alignright" width="540"]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni and graduate students in his lab are part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team developing a new, three-dimensional imaging system for early detection of lung cancer. Moazeni’s contribution to this work includes development of sophisticated silicon photonic microchips — integrated circuits that use both electrons and photons (light) to process information. Shown above, an example of a silicon photonic chip from Moazeni’s lab. Moazeni will be developing chips similar to this one for the imaging system.[/caption]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni and graduate students in his lab are part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team developing a new, three-dimensional imaging system for early detection of lung cancer. This disease is one of the most common cancers worldwide, and in the U.S., it accounts for one in five cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society, which notes that early detection is key to survival.
The probe at the tip of this first-of-its kind imaging system is tiny, about the size of a grain of rice. This compact size will enable the team to shrink the bronchoscope that surrounds the system, which is used to investigate the lungs. Moazeni estimates that this slender bronchoscope could be approximately 10 times smaller in diameter than what is currently in use in clinics today — providing unprecedented access to small bronchial tubes inside the lungs.
The research team is led by Professor Soner Sonmezoglu from Northeastern University. In addition to Sonmezoglu, Moazeni, and their graduate students, the team includes engineers and medical professionals from Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Moazeni’s contribution to this work includes development of sophisticated silicon photonic microchips — integrated circuits that use both electrons and photons (light) to process information. These chips will convert, digitize, and process electrical and optical signals within the imaging system. His lab will also be working with optical fibers to connect the imaging system probe to an electronic controller outside the body.
“One of the major novelties in this work is that all the communication from the tip of the probe that sends the signal through this bronchoscope to the external unit is being done in the optical domain, using optical fibers,” Moazeni said. “We’ll use just a few fibers to enable a high-quality, high-signal readout from the probe tip.”
The project is funded by an award of up to $13.2 million from the United States government Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, known as ARPA-H. This agency provides funding for research that aims to improve health outcomes across a wide range of patient populations, communities, diseases, and conditions. ARPA-H focuses on transformative ideas for health research breakthroughs and technological advancements.
Blending photoacoustic imaging and silicon photonics
[caption id="attachment_35771" align="alignright" width="540"]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni[/caption]
The width of bronchoscopes today is typically measured in centimeters, but the research team’s bronchoscope will have a diameter measured in millimeters, enabling the imaging system to navigate deep into the lungs for early cancer detection. The prototype the team is developing will use a disposable probe that is 1.5 millimeters in diameter and a reusable electronic controller connected by optical fibers. The device will be able to gather high-resolution, 3D images that convey functional and structural information about tumors inside the lungs and whether they are benign or malignant. In addition to being compact, the device will be low power to avoid overheating sensitive tissues in the body, and it will be capable of producing precise, clear images in real time as the bronchoscope navigates the lungs.
The imaging system will use a technique called “photoacoustic imaging” to differentiate between healthy and cancerous tissue. Photoacoustic imaging combines optical excitation of tissue using a laser with ultrasound detection to produce high definition, 3D images. It is a method that has been gaining popularity in recent years for detecting breast cancer, skin cancer, and other types of cancers as well.
“Photoacoustic imaging has a lot of advantages for cancerous tumor detection, but in clinics, it is usually done through bulky equipment that is outside the body,” Moazeni said. “Here, we are making the probe tiny, so it can fit into a bronchoscope small enough to get into the finest pathways inside the lungs.”
Moazeni will use a silicon photonic microchip to interface optical fibers with ultrasound detectors at the tip of the bronchoscope probe. Outside of the body, in the electronic controller, he is building a chip that will convert optical signals from the bronchoscope into electrical signals. This chip will have 500 optical receiver channels, which, if achieved, will be a world record. Moazeni, who is known for developing advanced silicon photonic microchips for data centers, noted the advantages of this technology for medical applications.
“This is still optical communication, but instead of being between two computer racks in a data center, it is between the probe tip and the external module,” he said. “It’s very exciting to see that the same type of advanced chip that can revolutionize data centers can also have some real impacts on biomedical devices.”
Looking forward to clinical applications
The five-year grant and support from ARPA-H will enable the team to produce a prototype that can be moved into rigorous testing, commercialization, and adoption by doctors and clinicians. Through Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts General Hospital, the team will have access to many medical professionals, who will provide guidance and input along the way.
Moazeni noted that this 3D-imaging system could also prove to be useful for detecting other types of diseases deep inside the body, including ovarian, prostate, and bladder cancers.
“Photoacoustic imaging has been proven to be very effective for cancer diagnosis and treatment, but so far, it has limited clinical use because of the form factor — how difficult it is to make the system small and compact,” Moazeni said. “Our device will aid early detection of lung cancer, and it could have a lot of other applications as well. It’s a highly sensitive tumor detector that could fit not only into the lungs, but potentially the veins, arteries, and maybe even the brain. So, eventually, it could have a huge impact on diagnosis and treatment of many different types of cancer.”
Learn more about this research in this recent press release from Northeastern University. More information about UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni is available on his website bio.
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[post_content] => By Wayne Gillam / UW ECE News
[caption id="attachment_35733" align="alignright" width="600"]
UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons develops cold atom systems that use precise optical control of qubits for quantum computing, sensing, and communication. He also directs the Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed (QT3) Lab, which is equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and provides unique opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience exploring quantum phenomena in an interdisciplinary environment. Photo by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE[/caption]
UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons says that he is interested in big, tough-to-solve science and engineering problems, anything where there might be a large question mark in people’s minds. Perhaps that interest is what drew him to focus on one of the most difficult and complex challenges of our time — making the promise of quantum computers and related technologies a practical reality.
Understanding quantum mechanics has enabled scientists and engineers to make great strides over the last several decades, producing sophisticated devices, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, lasers, solar cells, electron microscopes, and atomic clocks. And in recent years, quantum technology has been made much of in the media. Quantum computers have the potential to significantly outpace the fastest supercomputers in existence today, making revolutionary advances possible in areas such as communications, cryptography, and drug discovery. However, there are many challenges ahead before engineers can make this lofty vision a reality, including managing errors in sensitive quantum systems, developing high-quality hardware, and building quantum computers to a scale needed for practical tasks. Parsons seeks to address these challenges, especially scaling up quantum computers.
To this end, Parsons is focusing on increasing the number of usable qubits in a quantum computer. A qubit is the basic unit of information in quantum computing, and it is created by manipulating and measuring quantum particles, such as photons, electrons, trapped ions, superconducting circuits, or atoms. To date, the world record for the most number of qubits in a quantum computer is a little over 1,000. But quantum computers will need to be capable of managing close to a million qubits to be useful for solving real-world problems. Parsons is working toward bridging that wide gap. He develops cold atom systems that use precise optical control of qubits for quantum computing, communication, and sensing. He also directs the Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed (QT3) Lab, which is equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and provides unique opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience exploring quantum phenomena in an interdisciplinary environment.
A path from academia to industry and back again
[caption id="attachment_35735" align="alignright" width="500"]
This illustration shows a vacuum chamber for a neutral atom quantum processor developed by Parsons. At the top of the illustration is a pyrex glass cell containing lasers and magnets that create a beam of rubidium atoms, which are directed downward. After passing through the middle of the device, which provides high-speed vacuum pumping and optical access for further atomic beam preparation, the atoms are moved into another glass cell. There, they are trapped in the middle of four microscopes, which can project precise light fields produced and controlled by digital holograms and photonic integrated circuits to trap single atoms, cool them to a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, and manipulate their quantum states to perform quantum computations. Illustration provided by Max Parsons.[/caption]
Parsons' interest in quantum phenomena began as a child. He enjoyed reading popular physics books in elementary and middle school. In high school, he took part in hands-on astronomy experiments and spectroscopy, the investigation and measurement of spectra produced when matter interacts with or emits light or other electromagnetic radiation. He also joined a lab early in his freshman year at Harvard University. This lab specialized in precision spectroscopy on atoms and small molecules for fundamental physics measurements.
Parsons received his bachelor’s degree in 2010 and decided to stay at Harvard for graduate studies. He remained connected with the lab where he spent his undergraduate years and worked with them to measure the roundness of an electron to a factor of 10 times better than anyone else had ever done it before. It was research that landed on the January 2014 cover of Science, one of the most prestigious journals in the world. But the bulk of Parsons’ graduate studies were spent in a different research group at Harvard that specialized in imaging and manipulating single atoms laser cooled to very low temperatures. This work set the stage for his later research in cold atom quantum computing.
After graduating from Harvard in 2016 with his doctoral degree, Parsons decided to move into industry. He accepted a position as a physicist and scientist at Meta’s Reality Labs, where he worked in nanophotonics and optics as applied to augmented reality display systems. There, he was part of a team that developed the recently released Meta Orion augmented reality glasses. He also was one of the first hires at Atom Computing, a startup that builds quantum computers and holds the world record for producing the most usable number of qubits (mentioned earlier in this article). He still collaborates with Atom Computing today.
“Industry-academic connections is something I’m interested in fostering, having been the rare faculty member that spent significant time in industry before coming back to academia,” Parsons said. “My hope is to foster collaboration between engineers and physicists to help solve the big problem of scaling up quantum computing systems.”
The Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed (QT3) Lab
[caption id="attachment_35738" align="alignright" width="500"]
UW ECE graduate student Ohik Kwon and Parsons stand in front of a vacuum chamber built for a neutral atom quantum processor, which they recently assembled. Photo by Max Parsons[/caption]
Parsons joined UW ECE in February 2022 as the inaugural director of the QT3 Lab, which was started by UW ECE and Physics Professor Kai-Mei Fu. The main goal of the QT3 Lab is to make quantum technology hardware more accessible for research and education. Parsons said that he and Fu are aiming to create an environment where there are seamless transition opportunities between these two areas. Three months after he joined, the QT3 Lab received an infusion of congressional funding, brought in by the UW Office of the Provost and Washington state Senator Maria Cantwell. This financial support enabled Parsons and Fu to significantly expand their vision for the Lab and purchase state-of-the-art equipment.
Parsons has received repeated feedback that the QT3 Lab is unique and one of the best of its kind in the nation. In addition to being a research hub, it provides undergraduate and graduate students with hard-to-find research opportunities. Another unique thing about the QT3 Lab is that it is housed in an engineering department rather than a physics department. A typical undergraduate curriculum in electrical and computer engineering does not include a significant amount of coursework in quantum mechanics; however, UW ECE offers undergraduate students a Quantum Technologies Pathway to graduate studies, which is part of what makes the Department a good fit for the Lab.
“My hope is to foster collaboration between engineers and physicists to help solve the big problem of scaling up quantum computing systems.” — UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons
The QT3 Lab is highly interdisciplinary. It involves stakeholders from across campus and around the Pacific Northwest. Students and faculty come from ECE, computer science and engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, materials science, and physics. The QT3 Lab is also collaborative within quantum technology development itself. The Lab pulls in those like Parsons, who is working on projects in cold atoms, as well as researchers who are studying solid-state defects, trapped ions, and other types of quantum systems. This enables an approach to evolving quantum technologies from multiple, often complementary perspectives.
Teaching, mentoring and undergraduate research opportunities
[caption id="attachment_35740" align="alignright" width="500"]
UW ECE graduate student Enrique Garcia and Parsons examine a diamond sample via a confocal microscope in the QT3 Lab. Photo by Dennis Wise / University of Washington[/caption]
Parsons became a research assistant professor in February 2024. He is now in the midst of growing the QT3 Lab and his research team, adding more graduate students this quarter. Since Parsons joined UW ECE, the QT3 Lab has developed a strong track record of providing unique research opportunities for undergraduate students, and he said he sees that continuing. For example, Parsons is collaborating with Fu on developing a quantum processor based on nitrogen vacancy centers in diamonds. Until this quarter, the research team for this project was entirely undergraduates, with supervision from Parsons and Fu. The team produced a paper, published in Applied Physics Letters, and the lead author, Asher Han, who was a UW undergraduate studying physics when the research started, went on to spend a year as a research scientist and post-baccalaureate student in the QT3 Lab and at UW ECE. Han is now a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. The initial stages and proofs of concept of Parsons’ cold atom research at UW ECE were also performed by undergraduates in the Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship, or ENGINE, capstone program. Under Parsons’ supervision, this student team developed electronics for image processing in real time to detect cold atoms. Yet another undergraduate research project led by Parsons was designing a teaching apparatus for ion trapping. This produced another paper, currently in preprint, and it is a demonstration of an instructional lab Parsons hopes to make accessible to other institutions.
Over the last two years, Parsons has mentored many students in his role as a research scientist and director of the QT3 Lab. He has been a mentor for multiple capstone programs, including ENGINE at UW ECE as well as the Accelerating Quantum-Enabled Technologies (AQET) traineeship (as described on the Amazon Web Services’ blog) and the UW Graduate Certificate in Quantum Information Science and Engineering, which are both offered through QuantumX, where Parsons is a faculty member. Going forward, he will be teaching courses at UW ECE, including “Introduction to Quantum Hardware” in the Department’s Professional Master’s Program and a graduate-level course in quantum optics. Parsons said he is looking forward to teaching undergraduate courses as well. Having been a first-generation college student, he said he appreciates the importance of access to education and facilities like the QT3 Lab.
“I think it’s important to create a space to be able to train students who aren’t necessarily coming in with advanced math or programming skills because it may turn out that those students, with the right training, are the brightest ones to do this sort of work,” Parsons said. “I think we shouldn’t limit ourselves as a society. We all need access. We should make the pool of people we’re drawing from as big as possible.”
Research collaborations, outside activities and long-term goals
[caption id="attachment_35742" align="alignright" width="500"]
A close up of the diamond sample for the nitrogen vacancy quantum testbed professors Fu and Parsons collaborate on with their students. Photo by Dennis Wise / University of Washington[/caption]
Parsons is collaborative in his work and community-oriented in his leisure activities. His UW ECE collaborators include Fu and Assistant Professor Sara Mouradian. He is also in talks with professors Mo Li, Arka Majumdar, and Sajjad Moazeni to do joint research projects. Outside the Department, he has collaborated with Boris Blinov, a UW professor in the physics department, and he is in discussions about possible future collaborations with Subhadeep Gupta, who is another physics professor at the University. Parsons is also engaged in bringing faculty across campus who are involved in quantum research together for lunches and quarterly meetings. Outside of the UW, Parsons’ hobbies include mountaineering and music. He is active with The Mountaineers, a Seattle climbing club, and he has led glacier-climbing expeditions. He also is part of Seattle Pro Musica, an award-winning, local choral ensemble.
Over the long term, Parsons said he hopes to add more items to the photonic toolbox that will allow researchers to better control quantum systems. To this end, he and Fu, along with David Ginger, a professor in the chemistry department, are planning to install an atomic force and scanning tunneling microscope for researchers in the QT3 Lab during winter quarter. They also plan to teach students the fundamentals of how this device works in an instructional lab where students can build their own atomic force microscope. This fits into their overall plan of using the Lab as a training ground for students to go on to do research with sophisticated instrumentation.
“In research, what I find most exciting is the prospect of developing new tools that we can use to probe quantum phenomena more deeply,” Parsons said. “In teaching, I think something that will probably be able to anchor me forever is that I am contributing to making people better at something technical and hopefully helping them to have better, more fulfilled lives.”
For more information about UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons and the QT3 Lab, visit his bio page.
[post_title] => Max Parsons — engineering quantum technology while making state-of-the-art hardware more accessible for research and education
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[post_content] => Article by Wayne Gillam, photos by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE News
[caption id="attachment_35938" align="alignright" width="574"]
Clockwise, from upper left: Microchips designed by UW ECE faculty members Sajjad Moazeni, Mo Li, Chris Rudell, and Hossein Naghavi[/caption]
Microchips can be found in almost every device that uses electronics, from smartphones and microwave ovens to satellites and supersonic jets. These tiny chips are so commonplace we take them for granted, but they are a wonder of modern engineering.
A microchip, also called a semiconductor chip or an integrated circuit, is a layered set of electronic circuits built onto a small, flat piece of silicon. These chips are manufactured on a microscopic scale, and the components that make up this intricate latticework (such as transistors, resistors, and their interconnections) are so tiny that their dimensions are measured in nanometers. That is incredibly small. To put it into perspective, a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. Some microchip components are now under 10 nanometers wide, which makes it possible to fit billions of transistors onto a single chip.
Microchips can be further defined by the type of integrated circuitry they contain and by their function. In terms of circuitry, a chip can be digital, analog, or mixed signal. In digital circuits, signals are binary (either “on” or “off”). In analog chips, the signals are continuous, meaning they can take on any value in a given range. And mixed-signal chips are what they sound like, chips that handle both digital and analog signals. In regard to function, there are four main categories: logic chips, which are the “brains” of electronics that process information to complete a task, memory chips for storing information, application-specific integrated chips, or ASICs, which are customized for a particular use, and system-on-a-chip devices, or SoCs, integrated circuits that combine electronic device components onto a single chip. SoCs incorporate a large, complex electronic system, which about 50 years ago would have required an entire building to house.
“The UW is already the biggest hub in chip design in the Pacific Northwest. I want to contribute to improving that standing and making sure students in this area can get a comparable or better education than anywhere else in the nation.” — UW ECE Assistant Professor Ang Li
UW ECE faculty design all these different types of microchips and are leaders in the field today. These faculty members are known for creative, interdisciplinary approaches to chip design and development, and they have strong collaborations with industry. They also have access to the Washington Nanofabrication Facility for building chips on-campus as well as support from the Department, which has designed academic pathways for undergraduate students interested in pursuing a career in the semiconductor industry. Together, these elements combine to put UW ECE at the forefront of microchip design, enabling the Department to offer unique educational opportunities for students.
In addition, federal and state support for the semiconductor industry, such as that from the CHIPS and Science Act, will continue to feed manufacturing and workforce development for the foreseeable future. UW ECE is well-positioned to leverage this funding and support, which stands to provide more opportunities for students and faculty, strengthen existing collaborations in the field, and create new industry, government, and community partnerships.
Learn more in this article about several UW ECE faculty members who specialize in microchip design, the focus of their research, and the opportunities they provide students.
Ang Li
[caption id="attachment_35789" align="alignleft" width="250"]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Ang Li[/caption]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Ang Li designs advanced digital microchips that are tailored to, but not limited by, specific application needs. He directs the PN Computer Engineering Lab at the UW, which focuses on innovating a variety of devices ranging from computing systems to integrated circuits. The lab also explores the interplay between classic and emerging computing technologies. Li specializes in chips that he calls “domain optimized,” meaning that chips designed in this way are optimized for specific applications, but they can be used for other purposes as well. Some of the application areas Li designs chips for include artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing for scientific studies and simulations, data centers that support cloud computing, and emerging technologies like quantum computing.
Li is relatively new to UW ECE. After graduating from Princeton University in 2023 with a doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering, he spent a year as a visiting postdoctoral scholar with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and joined UW ECE as an affiliate assistant professor. In September 2024, he joined UW ECE full-time as a tenure-track assistant professor. Li’s lab has been focusing on chip modeling and simulation, and he anticipates forming strong industry collaborations with companies such as AMD, Intel, Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. He currently has opportunities for students to work on state-of-the-art research projects in his lab. He also noted that he can pair undergraduate and graduate students with his doctoral students to help provide a better understanding of how research is conducted.
“The UW is already the biggest hub in chip design in the Pacific Northwest,” Li said. “I want to contribute to improving that standing and making sure students in this area can get a comparable or even better education than anywhere else in the nation.”
Sajjad Moazeni
[caption id="attachment_35794" align="alignleft" width="250"]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni[/caption]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni directs the Emerging Technologies and Integrated Systems lab at the UW, which develops digital, analog, and mixed-signal microchips that have applications in computing and communications, sensing and imaging, and the life sciences. Moazeni’s work blends state-of-the-art electronics with photonics and other emerging technologies. His lab focuses on all critical aspects of emerging integrated technologies, from fabrication and integration methods to system-level and architectural analysis in order to build next-generation, integrated systems. Specific applications for Moazeni’s chips include light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems for self-driving vehicles, optical interconnects for data centers that support artificial intelligence and machine learning in the cloud, and endoscopes for medical imaging and interventions. He also develops cryogenic optics for quantum computing, which he collaborates on with UW ECE and Physics Professor Mo Li.
Moazeni’s strong industry partnerships, cutting-edge research, and openness to new ideas and approaches provide students with opportunities to learn about leading-edge technologies that they might not find elsewhere. His industry and institutional collaborators include GlobalFoundries, which helps support silicon photonic chip fabrication, and Fermilab, the nation’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory. Recently, Moazeni has been bringing AI and machine learning into some of the lower-level tasks involved in chip design, such as generating simulations, and he has been automating some parts of his design flow using generative AI.
“The area of photonics and optical devices that need to be fabricated and packaged with electronics is something very new. It’s not a part of any typical course curriculum, and it is very rare, even in graduate-level courses,” Moazeni said. “I embed this topic into some of the courses that I teach, and my lab offers many unique research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.”
Hossein Naghavi
[caption id="attachment_35801" align="alignleft" width="250"]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Hossein Naghavi[/caption]
The focus of research by UW ECE Assistant Professor Hossein Naghavi is very high frequency electronics in the terahertz range (100 gigahertz to 10 terahertz), which is a domain in between the microwave frequencies commonly used in cell phones and higher frequencies used in optical technologies. Naghavi directs the Terahertz Integrated MicroElectronics lab at the UW, where he designs analog microchips for imaging and spectroscopy applications and high-speed communications. Because terahertz frequencies have the potential to enable the user to see through optically opaque materials, Naghavi’s research has applications in biomedical sensing and imaging as well as surveillance and security. Also, the unique ability of terahertz frequencies to resonate with macromolecules, such as proteins and DNA, could create new opportunities for cancer cell detection and pharmaceutical research.
Naghavi is working toward improving microchip performance by exploring new ideas, theories, and techniques derived from physics and implementing them in existing microchips using traditional fabrication methods. By doing so, he aims to leapfrog over existing chip technology and significantly improve chip performance. His industry collaborators include GlobalFoundries and STMicroelectronics. These companies help to support research opportunities in his lab for graduate and undergraduate students. Naghavi is also aiming to incorporate advanced electromagnetic courses into UW ECE curriculum, which will provide important knowledge for students who want to design high-frequency terahertz chips.
He noted the importance of the CHIPS and Science Act to workforce development and how UW ECE is playing a crucial role in this endeavor.
“We need to train more and more engineers to become familiar with this chip design process because of the CHIPS Act,” Naghavi said. “Traditionally, most Ph.D. students in the circuit design area are able to fabricate these chips after two or three years of study. But now, undergrads will also have this opportunity. In the coming years, we will have more students in this circuit domain because of these opportunities that are coming.”
Chris Rudell
[caption id="attachment_35802" align="alignleft" width="250"]
UW ECE Professor Chris Rudell[/caption]
UW ECE Professor Chris Rudell develops analog chips that can be implemented in low-cost digital silicon technologies. His work integrates both digital and analog components on the same chip. He directs the Future Analog Systems Technologies lab at the UW, which explores a broad range of topics related to analog, mixed-signal, radio frequency, and millimeter-wave circuits. His lab focuses on developing novel architectures and circuits that can overcome current performance challenges and limitations with respect to speed, power consumption, signal fidelity, and costs associated with advanced silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor, or CMOS, technologies. Rudell’s work has applications in high-speed wireless communications (1 to 100 gigahertz), neural engineering, biomedical interfaces, and quantum computing. He has become well known for his work in full-duplex communication, designing chips that can send and receive large amounts of data at high speeds while minimizing signal distortion and conserving bandwidth available for wireless communication. He recently gave a keynote talk on this topic at the 2024 European Microwave Conference.
Rudell is an experienced chip designer, and he has many industry sponsors and collaborators that support his research, such as Qualcomm, Boeing, Google, Medtronic, and Intel. His lab includes graduate and undergraduate students, and he is actively involved in shaping undergraduate education at UW ECE. He recently helped to develop an integrated system curriculum pathway for students interested in learning about chip design and development. He also put together a course for students to learn how to do a chip tape-out (the final stage for microchips before they are sent to manufacturing), which was a first for the UW.
“What we do in my lab is build chips,” Rudell said. “I’m always looking for bright students that want to contribute and try out new ideas, whether that be a novel circuit or system concept, or perhaps exploring compatible AI concepts which assist our analog hardware. My lab provides enormous opportunities for students, and we’re only limited by the amount of funding I can generate.”
UPWARDS for the Future Network
[caption id="attachment_35803" align="alignleft" width="250"]
UW ECE and Physics Professor Mo Li[/caption]
UW ECE and Physics Professor Mo Li is the Department’s associate chair for research and a principal investigator in the U.S.-Japan University Partnership for Workforce Advancement and Research & Development in Semiconductors (UPWARDS) for the Future Network. UPWARDS brings together six American universities and five Japanese universities with Micron Technology to provide advanced training and research opportunities that will grow the semiconductor workforce and help the United States and Japan build more of the microchips that both nations need. A total of $30 million in funding is available for this collaboration, including a $10 million grant provided by the National Science Foundation’s new Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, which was authorized by the CHIPS Act. Matching funds were provided by Micron and Tokyo Electron. Li is a principal investigator for the grant alongside David Bergsman, who is a UW assistant professor in chemical engineering.
“The UPWARDS for the Future program sets a prime model of government-industry-academia partnership, propelling the development of the U.S. semiconductor technology workforce,” Li said in a UW News press release. “This initiative stands out with an emphasis on international collaboration, providing students with invaluable insights and experience into the industry’s international supply chain dynamics.”
Li directs the Laboratory of Photonic Systems at the UW, where he and his research team study integrated photonic systems, optoelectronic materials, and quantum phenomena. He develops novel devices and new technologies for communication and computation, optical sensing, imaging, infrared detection, chemical and biomedical sensing, and neuroscience. Li has worked with CoMotion at the UW to develop and license technologies he has created, and he has received support from their Innovation Gap Fund. He is also a faculty member of the Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems at the UW and QuantumX, which pioneers the development of quantum-enabled technologies at the University.
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[post_content] => Article by Wayne Gillam, photos by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE News
[caption id="attachment_35913" align="alignright" width="550"] UW ECE Assistant Professor Kim Ingraham designs personalized, adaptive control strategies for assistive robotic devices, such as exoskeletons and powered wheelchairs. Her work involves bringing students and faculty from different backgrounds and disciplines together to move toward a common goal of producing more usable assistive robotic devices for people with disabilities.[/caption]
Millions of people have seen the Iron Man movies, in which the main character is empowered by a robotic exoskeleton. And millions more have watched the scene in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker receives a mechanical, touch-sensitive prosthetic hand that is wired into his nervous system. Because exoskeletons and smart prosthetics actually exist today, many might assume that we are only a few steps away from bringing this advanced technology we see on the movie screen into people’s everyday lives.
But the reality is that implementation of smart prosthetic systems and wearable robotics, such as exoskeletons, is not that simple. Robotic and mechanical systems can do some amazing things on their own, as this Boston Dynamics video demonstrates. But once a human being is brought into the equation, with all the complexities the human brain and body entail, it is a different story. What might appear on the surface to be a straightforward matter of creating a human-robot interface is, in reality, a difficult and complex engineering problem.
UW ECE Assistant Professor Kim Ingraham is addressing this multifaceted challenge in her lab, where she designs personalized, adaptive control strategies for exoskeletons and powered wheelchairs for young children. Her work is primarily aimed at creating usable assistive robotic devices for people with disabilities, and it is highly interdisciplinary, drawing tools and knowledge from robotics and controls, neural engineering, biomechanics, and machine learning.
"UW ECE is such a strong department in my research area. It’s a national leader in neural engineering as well as robotics and controls. And my work sits at the intersection of those two areas.” — UW ECE Assistant professor Kim Ingraham
Ingraham is also co-author of a new paper in the journal Nature, which examines ways to optimize and customize robotic assistive technologies built with humans in the device control and feedback loop. The paper brings together researchers from around the world who are working on human-in-the-loop optimization for assistive robotics. It explores over a decade of scientific research in the field, defines some of the key challenges, and highlights some of the current work being done in this area. Ingraham’s contribution to the paper draws from her doctoral research estimating energy cost using wearable sensors and including human preference as an evaluation metric for assistive robots.
“The fundamental challenge in the field is that historically we have studied the way humans naturally move and then we have built robots that can mimic that movement. But when the human is wearing the robot and they’re both in the control loop at the same time, we have to figure out ways for those systems to successfully interact,” Ingraham said. “Understanding and designing for the complexity of the interactions between the robot and the human is one of the big gaps that we still have to address.”
To help close these sorts of knowledge gaps, Ingraham oversees several different research projects that study and develop personalized, adaptive control strategies for assistive robotic devices. Although she is focused on designing assistive technologies for rehabilitation or for people with disabilities, she also works with augmentative devices, such as exoskeletons for nondisabled people, to better understand how robotic assistance impacts human motion. The engineering knowledge she gains from this research helps to inform her work and enables her team to design better device controllers.
An interdisciplinary path leads to UW ECE
[caption id="attachment_35916" align="alignright" width="500"] Ingraham helps UW ECE doctoral student Zijie Jin put on a Biomotum SPARK ankle exoskeleton for an experiment in the UW Amplifying Movement & Performance Lab. This experiment is designed to help better understand how robotic assistance from an exoskeleton affects how participants walk, how much energy they consume, and how they feel while using the device.[/caption]
As an undergraduate student in her freshman year at Vanderbilt University, Ingraham participated in an Alternative Spring Break program, which took place at Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, a rehabilitation facility for people with disabilities. There, she was exposed to technology that supported people’s mobility and other activities in their lives, such as a powered wheelchair with an attached, adaptive knitting setup that allowed the user to knit using only one hand. The experience inspired Ingraham, and she became excited about the idea of using engineering skills to build assistive technologies.
In 2012, after receiving her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering, she went on to apply to graduate schools. Unfortunately, she wasn’t admitted on her first attempt. She said this was not because she didn’t have good grades or research experience, but because she lacked an understanding of what she calls the “hidden curriculum” required for graduate school admission. According to Ingraham, this hidden curriculum includes acquiring a deeper understanding of the graduate admissions process as well as finding effective ways to demonstrate solid academic ability and research experience.
She moved on to secure a position as a research engineer at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), where she worked from 2012 to 2015. It was there, in a hospital research setting, that Ingraham gained the knowledge and skills she needed to make it into graduate school.
“I learned everything at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. I had an absolutely phenomenal mentor, Annie Simon, and the director of our group was Levi Hargrove, and they were both incredibly supportive,” Ingraham said. “In particular, Annie taught me how to be a good researcher. She taught me things like how to conduct a good experiment, how to write a good paper, and how to be a really compassionate mentor while still maintaining high expectations.”
After three years at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Ingraham applied to graduate school again. This time, she was admitted to the University of Michigan, where she went on to earn her master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering in 2021.
Ingraham’s interdisciplinary background ended up leading her to the UW and to UW ECE. From 2021 to 2023, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the UW Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences, known as CREATE, with advisers in mechanical engineering and rehabilitation medicine. Toward the end of her fellowship, a colleague encouraged her to apply for an open faculty position at UW ECE because it appeared to be a good fit for her background.
“I originally thought, ‘I’m not in ECE, that doesn’t make any sense.’ But then, I started looking more in depth at the faculty and really saw how UW ECE is such a strong department in my research area,” Ingraham said. “It’s a national leader in neural engineering as well as robotics and controls. And my work sits at the intersection of those two areas.”
With that in mind, Ingraham applied, and in January 2023, she became a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department.
Research projects and collaborations
[caption id="attachment_35920" align="alignleft" width="500"] A closeup of the Biomotum SPARK ankle exoskeleton. This device is adjustable and can be worn by children or adults.[/caption]
Ingraham’s research at UW ECE involves bringing students and faculty from different backgrounds and disciplines together to move toward a common goal of producing more usable assistive robotic devices. The ECE doctoral students in her lab have degrees from a wide range of disciplines, including chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, neuroscience, and anthropology. Ingraham said she believes this diversity of backgrounds highlights the Department’s general philosophy of expanding the definition of who can be an ECE doctoral student. She also said that these students bring multiple perspectives that contribute to her research, and they are thriving in the UW ECE doctoral program.
Ingraham collaborates with faculty in UW ECE and from different departments across the University on a wide range of research projects. She is also a core faculty member in the Amplifying Movement & Performance Lab, an interdisciplinary, experimental lab shared by faculty from the UW College of Engineering and the UW Department of Rehabilitation Medicine. One aim of her research in the AMP Lab is to design adaptive algorithms for exoskeletons. To this end, she is collaborating with UW ECE Associate Professor Sam Burden to develop game theory algorithms to customize robotic assistance from an ankle exoskeleton. In another project at the AMP Lab, she is collaborating with UW ECE Professor Chet Moritz, who holds joint appointments in rehabilitation medicine, physiology, and biophysics, and is co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology. Ingraham and Moritz are working to combine transcutaneous (on the surface of the skin) spinal stimulation with exoskeleton assistance. This is groundbreaking work primarily for adults with spinal cord injury. She is also building on her postdoctoral work at CREATE by studying how early access to powered mobility devices impacts development, language, and movement in young children. It is research that involves the “Explorer Mini,” a small, colorful, joystick-controlled, powered mobility device for toddlers. In this work, Ingraham is collaborating with her previous postdoctoral advisers, professors Kat Steele in mechanical engineering and Heather Feldner in rehabilitation medicine.
Ingraham noted that she appreciates the interdisciplinary opportunities UW ECE provides.
“Something I really value about being in our Department is how interdisciplinary it is, how someone with a nontraditional background like myself can still have an intellectual home in the ECE department, just because of how many areas ECE touches,” Ingraham said. “It was the people and research strengths that got me excited about UW ECE. I wouldn’t necessarily belong in every ECE department, but UW ECE is a really awesome fit for me.”
Work as an educator
[caption id="attachment_35922" align="alignright" width="500"] Ingraham examines experimental biomechanics data with UW ECE doctoral student Annika Pfister as displayed by an open-source musculoskeletal modeling and simulation platform called “OpenSim.” This data was collected from a participant with a spinal cord injury who was walking. Ingraham is pointing out to Pfister the angle of the participant’s ankle onscreen[/caption]
Ingraham teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at UW ECE. She also leads a capstone course that includes both undergraduate and graduate students, the Neural Engineering Tech Studio. This is a cross-disciplinary course in UW ECE and the bioengineering department, facilitated by the Center for Neurotechnology. In the course, students design engineering prototypes based on neural engineering principles. The experience is structured to help teach students entrepreneurship skills as well as a user-centric thought process.
“I like teaching very applied courses,” Ingraham said. “I like it when students can see how what we’re doing in the classroom actually matters for real-world applications, how it manifests in research, industry, and technology we use every day.”
In addition to her duties as a researcher and an instructor, Ingraham is also chair of the UW ECE Colloquium committee. The Department’s Research Colloquium Lecture Series features research talks given by experts in electrical and computer engineering. Ingraham said that she and the committee are working hard not only to bring people in from across the nation to give these talks but also to build community in the Department through the lecture events.
For students interested in pursuing a career in robotics, Ingraham recommended learning the mathematical foundations of the field as early as possible. After gaining a firm grasp of the fundamentals, she said it was then important to find a niche within an application area to focus on. For Ingraham, that niche is assistive robotic technologies, and she noted how her professional goals and personal interests converge in this area.
“From a scientific perspective, I’m really interested in understanding how humans and wearable robots co-adapt to each other,” Ingraham said. “From a human point of view, I would really like to achieve the translation of our research into robotic systems that help people in meaningful ways — systems that can be adapted, personalized, and give people more choices in how they move around the world.”
For more information about UW ECE Assistant Professor Kim Ingraham, read her recent paper in Nature, and visit her faculty bio page or lab website.
[post_title] => Kim Ingraham — engineering assistive robotic devices for people with disabilities
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[post_content] => Article by Wayne Gillam, Photos by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE News
[caption id="attachment_35764" align="alignright" width="540"] UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni and graduate students in his lab are part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team developing a new, three-dimensional imaging system for early detection of lung cancer. Moazeni’s contribution to this work includes development of sophisticated silicon photonic microchips — integrated circuits that use both electrons and photons (light) to process information. Shown above, an example of a silicon photonic chip from Moazeni’s lab. Moazeni will be developing chips similar to this one for the imaging system.[/caption]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni and graduate students in his lab are part of a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team developing a new, three-dimensional imaging system for early detection of lung cancer. This disease is one of the most common cancers worldwide, and in the U.S., it accounts for one in five cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society, which notes that early detection is key to survival.
The probe at the tip of this first-of-its kind imaging system is tiny, about the size of a grain of rice. This compact size will enable the team to shrink the bronchoscope that surrounds the system, which is used to investigate the lungs. Moazeni estimates that this slender bronchoscope could be approximately 10 times smaller in diameter than what is currently in use in clinics today — providing unprecedented access to small bronchial tubes inside the lungs.
The research team is led by Professor Soner Sonmezoglu from Northeastern University. In addition to Sonmezoglu, Moazeni, and their graduate students, the team includes engineers and medical professionals from Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Moazeni’s contribution to this work includes development of sophisticated silicon photonic microchips — integrated circuits that use both electrons and photons (light) to process information. These chips will convert, digitize, and process electrical and optical signals within the imaging system. His lab will also be working with optical fibers to connect the imaging system probe to an electronic controller outside the body.
“One of the major novelties in this work is that all the communication from the tip of the probe that sends the signal through this bronchoscope to the external unit is being done in the optical domain, using optical fibers,” Moazeni said. “We’ll use just a few fibers to enable a high-quality, high-signal readout from the probe tip.”
The project is funded by an award of up to $13.2 million from the United States government Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, known as ARPA-H. This agency provides funding for research that aims to improve health outcomes across a wide range of patient populations, communities, diseases, and conditions. ARPA-H focuses on transformative ideas for health research breakthroughs and technological advancements.
Blending photoacoustic imaging and silicon photonics
[caption id="attachment_35771" align="alignright" width="540"] UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni[/caption]
The width of bronchoscopes today is typically measured in centimeters, but the research team’s bronchoscope will have a diameter measured in millimeters, enabling the imaging system to navigate deep into the lungs for early cancer detection. The prototype the team is developing will use a disposable probe that is 1.5 millimeters in diameter and a reusable electronic controller connected by optical fibers. The device will be able to gather high-resolution, 3D images that convey functional and structural information about tumors inside the lungs and whether they are benign or malignant. In addition to being compact, the device will be low power to avoid overheating sensitive tissues in the body, and it will be capable of producing precise, clear images in real time as the bronchoscope navigates the lungs.
The imaging system will use a technique called “photoacoustic imaging” to differentiate between healthy and cancerous tissue. Photoacoustic imaging combines optical excitation of tissue using a laser with ultrasound detection to produce high definition, 3D images. It is a method that has been gaining popularity in recent years for detecting breast cancer, skin cancer, and other types of cancers as well.
“Photoacoustic imaging has a lot of advantages for cancerous tumor detection, but in clinics, it is usually done through bulky equipment that is outside the body,” Moazeni said. “Here, we are making the probe tiny, so it can fit into a bronchoscope small enough to get into the finest pathways inside the lungs.”
Moazeni will use a silicon photonic microchip to interface optical fibers with ultrasound detectors at the tip of the bronchoscope probe. Outside of the body, in the electronic controller, he is building a chip that will convert optical signals from the bronchoscope into electrical signals. This chip will have 500 optical receiver channels, which, if achieved, will be a world record. Moazeni, who is known for developing advanced silicon photonic microchips for data centers, noted the advantages of this technology for medical applications.
“This is still optical communication, but instead of being between two computer racks in a data center, it is between the probe tip and the external module,” he said. “It’s very exciting to see that the same type of advanced chip that can revolutionize data centers can also have some real impacts on biomedical devices.”
Looking forward to clinical applications
The five-year grant and support from ARPA-H will enable the team to produce a prototype that can be moved into rigorous testing, commercialization, and adoption by doctors and clinicians. Through Johns Hopkins University and Massachusetts General Hospital, the team will have access to many medical professionals, who will provide guidance and input along the way.
Moazeni noted that this 3D-imaging system could also prove to be useful for detecting other types of diseases deep inside the body, including ovarian, prostate, and bladder cancers.
“Photoacoustic imaging has been proven to be very effective for cancer diagnosis and treatment, but so far, it has limited clinical use because of the form factor — how difficult it is to make the system small and compact,” Moazeni said. “Our device will aid early detection of lung cancer, and it could have a lot of other applications as well. It’s a highly sensitive tumor detector that could fit not only into the lungs, but potentially the veins, arteries, and maybe even the brain. So, eventually, it could have a huge impact on diagnosis and treatment of many different types of cancer.”
Learn more about this research in this recent press release from Northeastern University. More information about UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni is available on his website bio.
[post_title] => A new, 3D-imaging system for early detection of lung cancer
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[post_content] => By Wayne Gillam / UW ECE News
[caption id="attachment_35733" align="alignright" width="600"] UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons develops cold atom systems that use precise optical control of qubits for quantum computing, sensing, and communication. He also directs the Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed (QT3) Lab, which is equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and provides unique opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience exploring quantum phenomena in an interdisciplinary environment. Photo by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE[/caption]
UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons says that he is interested in big, tough-to-solve science and engineering problems, anything where there might be a large question mark in people’s minds. Perhaps that interest is what drew him to focus on one of the most difficult and complex challenges of our time — making the promise of quantum computers and related technologies a practical reality.
Understanding quantum mechanics has enabled scientists and engineers to make great strides over the last several decades, producing sophisticated devices, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, lasers, solar cells, electron microscopes, and atomic clocks. And in recent years, quantum technology has been made much of in the media. Quantum computers have the potential to significantly outpace the fastest supercomputers in existence today, making revolutionary advances possible in areas such as communications, cryptography, and drug discovery. However, there are many challenges ahead before engineers can make this lofty vision a reality, including managing errors in sensitive quantum systems, developing high-quality hardware, and building quantum computers to a scale needed for practical tasks. Parsons seeks to address these challenges, especially scaling up quantum computers.
To this end, Parsons is focusing on increasing the number of usable qubits in a quantum computer. A qubit is the basic unit of information in quantum computing, and it is created by manipulating and measuring quantum particles, such as photons, electrons, trapped ions, superconducting circuits, or atoms. To date, the world record for the most number of qubits in a quantum computer is a little over 1,000. But quantum computers will need to be capable of managing close to a million qubits to be useful for solving real-world problems. Parsons is working toward bridging that wide gap. He develops cold atom systems that use precise optical control of qubits for quantum computing, communication, and sensing. He also directs the Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed (QT3) Lab, which is equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and provides unique opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience exploring quantum phenomena in an interdisciplinary environment.
A path from academia to industry and back again
[caption id="attachment_35735" align="alignright" width="500"] This illustration shows a vacuum chamber for a neutral atom quantum processor developed by Parsons. At the top of the illustration is a pyrex glass cell containing lasers and magnets that create a beam of rubidium atoms, which are directed downward. After passing through the middle of the device, which provides high-speed vacuum pumping and optical access for further atomic beam preparation, the atoms are moved into another glass cell. There, they are trapped in the middle of four microscopes, which can project precise light fields produced and controlled by digital holograms and photonic integrated circuits to trap single atoms, cool them to a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero, and manipulate their quantum states to perform quantum computations. Illustration provided by Max Parsons.[/caption]
Parsons' interest in quantum phenomena began as a child. He enjoyed reading popular physics books in elementary and middle school. In high school, he took part in hands-on astronomy experiments and spectroscopy, the investigation and measurement of spectra produced when matter interacts with or emits light or other electromagnetic radiation. He also joined a lab early in his freshman year at Harvard University. This lab specialized in precision spectroscopy on atoms and small molecules for fundamental physics measurements.
Parsons received his bachelor’s degree in 2010 and decided to stay at Harvard for graduate studies. He remained connected with the lab where he spent his undergraduate years and worked with them to measure the roundness of an electron to a factor of 10 times better than anyone else had ever done it before. It was research that landed on the January 2014 cover of Science, one of the most prestigious journals in the world. But the bulk of Parsons’ graduate studies were spent in a different research group at Harvard that specialized in imaging and manipulating single atoms laser cooled to very low temperatures. This work set the stage for his later research in cold atom quantum computing.
After graduating from Harvard in 2016 with his doctoral degree, Parsons decided to move into industry. He accepted a position as a physicist and scientist at Meta’s Reality Labs, where he worked in nanophotonics and optics as applied to augmented reality display systems. There, he was part of a team that developed the recently released Meta Orion augmented reality glasses. He also was one of the first hires at Atom Computing, a startup that builds quantum computers and holds the world record for producing the most usable number of qubits (mentioned earlier in this article). He still collaborates with Atom Computing today.
“Industry-academic connections is something I’m interested in fostering, having been the rare faculty member that spent significant time in industry before coming back to academia,” Parsons said. “My hope is to foster collaboration between engineers and physicists to help solve the big problem of scaling up quantum computing systems.”
The Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed (QT3) Lab
[caption id="attachment_35738" align="alignright" width="500"] UW ECE graduate student Ohik Kwon and Parsons stand in front of a vacuum chamber built for a neutral atom quantum processor, which they recently assembled. Photo by Max Parsons[/caption]
Parsons joined UW ECE in February 2022 as the inaugural director of the QT3 Lab, which was started by UW ECE and Physics Professor Kai-Mei Fu. The main goal of the QT3 Lab is to make quantum technology hardware more accessible for research and education. Parsons said that he and Fu are aiming to create an environment where there are seamless transition opportunities between these two areas. Three months after he joined, the QT3 Lab received an infusion of congressional funding, brought in by the UW Office of the Provost and Washington state Senator Maria Cantwell. This financial support enabled Parsons and Fu to significantly expand their vision for the Lab and purchase state-of-the-art equipment.
Parsons has received repeated feedback that the QT3 Lab is unique and one of the best of its kind in the nation. In addition to being a research hub, it provides undergraduate and graduate students with hard-to-find research opportunities. Another unique thing about the QT3 Lab is that it is housed in an engineering department rather than a physics department. A typical undergraduate curriculum in electrical and computer engineering does not include a significant amount of coursework in quantum mechanics; however, UW ECE offers undergraduate students a Quantum Technologies Pathway to graduate studies, which is part of what makes the Department a good fit for the Lab.
“My hope is to foster collaboration between engineers and physicists to help solve the big problem of scaling up quantum computing systems.” — UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons
The QT3 Lab is highly interdisciplinary. It involves stakeholders from across campus and around the Pacific Northwest. Students and faculty come from ECE, computer science and engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, materials science, and physics. The QT3 Lab is also collaborative within quantum technology development itself. The Lab pulls in those like Parsons, who is working on projects in cold atoms, as well as researchers who are studying solid-state defects, trapped ions, and other types of quantum systems. This enables an approach to evolving quantum technologies from multiple, often complementary perspectives.
Teaching, mentoring and undergraduate research opportunities
[caption id="attachment_35740" align="alignright" width="500"] UW ECE graduate student Enrique Garcia and Parsons examine a diamond sample via a confocal microscope in the QT3 Lab. Photo by Dennis Wise / University of Washington[/caption]
Parsons became a research assistant professor in February 2024. He is now in the midst of growing the QT3 Lab and his research team, adding more graduate students this quarter. Since Parsons joined UW ECE, the QT3 Lab has developed a strong track record of providing unique research opportunities for undergraduate students, and he said he sees that continuing. For example, Parsons is collaborating with Fu on developing a quantum processor based on nitrogen vacancy centers in diamonds. Until this quarter, the research team for this project was entirely undergraduates, with supervision from Parsons and Fu. The team produced a paper, published in Applied Physics Letters, and the lead author, Asher Han, who was a UW undergraduate studying physics when the research started, went on to spend a year as a research scientist and post-baccalaureate student in the QT3 Lab and at UW ECE. Han is now a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. The initial stages and proofs of concept of Parsons’ cold atom research at UW ECE were also performed by undergraduates in the Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship, or ENGINE, capstone program. Under Parsons’ supervision, this student team developed electronics for image processing in real time to detect cold atoms. Yet another undergraduate research project led by Parsons was designing a teaching apparatus for ion trapping. This produced another paper, currently in preprint, and it is a demonstration of an instructional lab Parsons hopes to make accessible to other institutions.
Over the last two years, Parsons has mentored many students in his role as a research scientist and director of the QT3 Lab. He has been a mentor for multiple capstone programs, including ENGINE at UW ECE as well as the Accelerating Quantum-Enabled Technologies (AQET) traineeship (as described on the Amazon Web Services’ blog) and the UW Graduate Certificate in Quantum Information Science and Engineering, which are both offered through QuantumX, where Parsons is a faculty member. Going forward, he will be teaching courses at UW ECE, including “Introduction to Quantum Hardware” in the Department’s Professional Master’s Program and a graduate-level course in quantum optics. Parsons said he is looking forward to teaching undergraduate courses as well. Having been a first-generation college student, he said he appreciates the importance of access to education and facilities like the QT3 Lab.
“I think it’s important to create a space to be able to train students who aren’t necessarily coming in with advanced math or programming skills because it may turn out that those students, with the right training, are the brightest ones to do this sort of work,” Parsons said. “I think we shouldn’t limit ourselves as a society. We all need access. We should make the pool of people we’re drawing from as big as possible.”
Research collaborations, outside activities and long-term goals
[caption id="attachment_35742" align="alignright" width="500"] A close up of the diamond sample for the nitrogen vacancy quantum testbed professors Fu and Parsons collaborate on with their students. Photo by Dennis Wise / University of Washington[/caption]
Parsons is collaborative in his work and community-oriented in his leisure activities. His UW ECE collaborators include Fu and Assistant Professor Sara Mouradian. He is also in talks with professors Mo Li, Arka Majumdar, and Sajjad Moazeni to do joint research projects. Outside the Department, he has collaborated with Boris Blinov, a UW professor in the physics department, and he is in discussions about possible future collaborations with Subhadeep Gupta, who is another physics professor at the University. Parsons is also engaged in bringing faculty across campus who are involved in quantum research together for lunches and quarterly meetings. Outside of the UW, Parsons’ hobbies include mountaineering and music. He is active with The Mountaineers, a Seattle climbing club, and he has led glacier-climbing expeditions. He also is part of Seattle Pro Musica, an award-winning, local choral ensemble.
Over the long term, Parsons said he hopes to add more items to the photonic toolbox that will allow researchers to better control quantum systems. To this end, he and Fu, along with David Ginger, a professor in the chemistry department, are planning to install an atomic force and scanning tunneling microscope for researchers in the QT3 Lab during winter quarter. They also plan to teach students the fundamentals of how this device works in an instructional lab where students can build their own atomic force microscope. This fits into their overall plan of using the Lab as a training ground for students to go on to do research with sophisticated instrumentation.
“In research, what I find most exciting is the prospect of developing new tools that we can use to probe quantum phenomena more deeply,” Parsons said. “In teaching, I think something that will probably be able to anchor me forever is that I am contributing to making people better at something technical and hopefully helping them to have better, more fulfilled lives.”
For more information about UW ECE Research Assistant Professor Max Parsons and the QT3 Lab, visit his bio page.
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[post_content] => Article by Wayne Gillam, photos by Ryan Hoover / UW ECE News
[caption id="attachment_35938" align="alignright" width="574"] Clockwise, from upper left: Microchips designed by UW ECE faculty members Sajjad Moazeni, Mo Li, Chris Rudell, and Hossein Naghavi[/caption]
Microchips can be found in almost every device that uses electronics, from smartphones and microwave ovens to satellites and supersonic jets. These tiny chips are so commonplace we take them for granted, but they are a wonder of modern engineering.
A microchip, also called a semiconductor chip or an integrated circuit, is a layered set of electronic circuits built onto a small, flat piece of silicon. These chips are manufactured on a microscopic scale, and the components that make up this intricate latticework (such as transistors, resistors, and their interconnections) are so tiny that their dimensions are measured in nanometers. That is incredibly small. To put it into perspective, a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick. Some microchip components are now under 10 nanometers wide, which makes it possible to fit billions of transistors onto a single chip.
Microchips can be further defined by the type of integrated circuitry they contain and by their function. In terms of circuitry, a chip can be digital, analog, or mixed signal. In digital circuits, signals are binary (either “on” or “off”). In analog chips, the signals are continuous, meaning they can take on any value in a given range. And mixed-signal chips are what they sound like, chips that handle both digital and analog signals. In regard to function, there are four main categories: logic chips, which are the “brains” of electronics that process information to complete a task, memory chips for storing information, application-specific integrated chips, or ASICs, which are customized for a particular use, and system-on-a-chip devices, or SoCs, integrated circuits that combine electronic device components onto a single chip. SoCs incorporate a large, complex electronic system, which about 50 years ago would have required an entire building to house.
“The UW is already the biggest hub in chip design in the Pacific Northwest. I want to contribute to improving that standing and making sure students in this area can get a comparable or better education than anywhere else in the nation.” — UW ECE Assistant Professor Ang Li
UW ECE faculty design all these different types of microchips and are leaders in the field today. These faculty members are known for creative, interdisciplinary approaches to chip design and development, and they have strong collaborations with industry. They also have access to the Washington Nanofabrication Facility for building chips on-campus as well as support from the Department, which has designed academic pathways for undergraduate students interested in pursuing a career in the semiconductor industry. Together, these elements combine to put UW ECE at the forefront of microchip design, enabling the Department to offer unique educational opportunities for students.
In addition, federal and state support for the semiconductor industry, such as that from the CHIPS and Science Act, will continue to feed manufacturing and workforce development for the foreseeable future. UW ECE is well-positioned to leverage this funding and support, which stands to provide more opportunities for students and faculty, strengthen existing collaborations in the field, and create new industry, government, and community partnerships.
Learn more in this article about several UW ECE faculty members who specialize in microchip design, the focus of their research, and the opportunities they provide students.
Ang Li
[caption id="attachment_35789" align="alignleft" width="250"] UW ECE Assistant Professor Ang Li[/caption]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Ang Li designs advanced digital microchips that are tailored to, but not limited by, specific application needs. He directs the PN Computer Engineering Lab at the UW, which focuses on innovating a variety of devices ranging from computing systems to integrated circuits. The lab also explores the interplay between classic and emerging computing technologies. Li specializes in chips that he calls “domain optimized,” meaning that chips designed in this way are optimized for specific applications, but they can be used for other purposes as well. Some of the application areas Li designs chips for include artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing for scientific studies and simulations, data centers that support cloud computing, and emerging technologies like quantum computing.
Li is relatively new to UW ECE. After graduating from Princeton University in 2023 with a doctoral degree in electrical and computer engineering, he spent a year as a visiting postdoctoral scholar with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and joined UW ECE as an affiliate assistant professor. In September 2024, he joined UW ECE full-time as a tenure-track assistant professor. Li’s lab has been focusing on chip modeling and simulation, and he anticipates forming strong industry collaborations with companies such as AMD, Intel, Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. He currently has opportunities for students to work on state-of-the-art research projects in his lab. He also noted that he can pair undergraduate and graduate students with his doctoral students to help provide a better understanding of how research is conducted.
“The UW is already the biggest hub in chip design in the Pacific Northwest,” Li said. “I want to contribute to improving that standing and making sure students in this area can get a comparable or even better education than anywhere else in the nation.”
Sajjad Moazeni
[caption id="attachment_35794" align="alignleft" width="250"] UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni[/caption]
UW ECE Assistant Professor Sajjad Moazeni directs the Emerging Technologies and Integrated Systems lab at the UW, which develops digital, analog, and mixed-signal microchips that have applications in computing and communications, sensing and imaging, and the life sciences. Moazeni’s work blends state-of-the-art electronics with photonics and other emerging technologies. His lab focuses on all critical aspects of emerging integrated technologies, from fabrication and integration methods to system-level and architectural analysis in order to build next-generation, integrated systems. Specific applications for Moazeni’s chips include light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems for self-driving vehicles, optical interconnects for data centers that support artificial intelligence and machine learning in the cloud, and endoscopes for medical imaging and interventions. He also develops cryogenic optics for quantum computing, which he collaborates on with UW ECE and Physics Professor Mo Li.
Moazeni’s strong industry partnerships, cutting-edge research, and openness to new ideas and approaches provide students with opportunities to learn about leading-edge technologies that they might not find elsewhere. His industry and institutional collaborators include GlobalFoundries, which helps support silicon photonic chip fabrication, and Fermilab, the nation’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory. Recently, Moazeni has been bringing AI and machine learning into some of the lower-level tasks involved in chip design, such as generating simulations, and he has been automating some parts of his design flow using generative AI.
“The area of photonics and optical devices that need to be fabricated and packaged with electronics is something very new. It’s not a part of any typical course curriculum, and it is very rare, even in graduate-level courses,” Moazeni said. “I embed this topic into some of the courses that I teach, and my lab offers many unique research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.”
Hossein Naghavi
[caption id="attachment_35801" align="alignleft" width="250"] UW ECE Assistant Professor Hossein Naghavi[/caption]
The focus of research by UW ECE Assistant Professor Hossein Naghavi is very high frequency electronics in the terahertz range (100 gigahertz to 10 terahertz), which is a domain in between the microwave frequencies commonly used in cell phones and higher frequencies used in optical technologies. Naghavi directs the Terahertz Integrated MicroElectronics lab at the UW, where he designs analog microchips for imaging and spectroscopy applications and high-speed communications. Because terahertz frequencies have the potential to enable the user to see through optically opaque materials, Naghavi’s research has applications in biomedical sensing and imaging as well as surveillance and security. Also, the unique ability of terahertz frequencies to resonate with macromolecules, such as proteins and DNA, could create new opportunities for cancer cell detection and pharmaceutical research.
Naghavi is working toward improving microchip performance by exploring new ideas, theories, and techniques derived from physics and implementing them in existing microchips using traditional fabrication methods. By doing so, he aims to leapfrog over existing chip technology and significantly improve chip performance. His industry collaborators include GlobalFoundries and STMicroelectronics. These companies help to support research opportunities in his lab for graduate and undergraduate students. Naghavi is also aiming to incorporate advanced electromagnetic courses into UW ECE curriculum, which will provide important knowledge for students who want to design high-frequency terahertz chips.
He noted the importance of the CHIPS and Science Act to workforce development and how UW ECE is playing a crucial role in this endeavor.
“We need to train more and more engineers to become familiar with this chip design process because of the CHIPS Act,” Naghavi said. “Traditionally, most Ph.D. students in the circuit design area are able to fabricate these chips after two or three years of study. But now, undergrads will also have this opportunity. In the coming years, we will have more students in this circuit domain because of these opportunities that are coming.”
Chris Rudell
[caption id="attachment_35802" align="alignleft" width="250"] UW ECE Professor Chris Rudell[/caption]
UW ECE Professor Chris Rudell develops analog chips that can be implemented in low-cost digital silicon technologies. His work integrates both digital and analog components on the same chip. He directs the Future Analog Systems Technologies lab at the UW, which explores a broad range of topics related to analog, mixed-signal, radio frequency, and millimeter-wave circuits. His lab focuses on developing novel architectures and circuits that can overcome current performance challenges and limitations with respect to speed, power consumption, signal fidelity, and costs associated with advanced silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor, or CMOS, technologies. Rudell’s work has applications in high-speed wireless communications (1 to 100 gigahertz), neural engineering, biomedical interfaces, and quantum computing. He has become well known for his work in full-duplex communication, designing chips that can send and receive large amounts of data at high speeds while minimizing signal distortion and conserving bandwidth available for wireless communication. He recently gave a keynote talk on this topic at the 2024 European Microwave Conference.
Rudell is an experienced chip designer, and he has many industry sponsors and collaborators that support his research, such as Qualcomm, Boeing, Google, Medtronic, and Intel. His lab includes graduate and undergraduate students, and he is actively involved in shaping undergraduate education at UW ECE. He recently helped to develop an integrated system curriculum pathway for students interested in learning about chip design and development. He also put together a course for students to learn how to do a chip tape-out (the final stage for microchips before they are sent to manufacturing), which was a first for the UW.
“What we do in my lab is build chips,” Rudell said. “I’m always looking for bright students that want to contribute and try out new ideas, whether that be a novel circuit or system concept, or perhaps exploring compatible AI concepts which assist our analog hardware. My lab provides enormous opportunities for students, and we’re only limited by the amount of funding I can generate.”
UPWARDS for the Future Network
[caption id="attachment_35803" align="alignleft" width="250"] UW ECE and Physics Professor Mo Li[/caption]
UW ECE and Physics Professor Mo Li is the Department’s associate chair for research and a principal investigator in the U.S.-Japan University Partnership for Workforce Advancement and Research & Development in Semiconductors (UPWARDS) for the Future Network. UPWARDS brings together six American universities and five Japanese universities with Micron Technology to provide advanced training and research opportunities that will grow the semiconductor workforce and help the United States and Japan build more of the microchips that both nations need. A total of $30 million in funding is available for this collaboration, including a $10 million grant provided by the National Science Foundation’s new Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships, which was authorized by the CHIPS Act. Matching funds were provided by Micron and Tokyo Electron. Li is a principal investigator for the grant alongside David Bergsman, who is a UW assistant professor in chemical engineering.
“The UPWARDS for the Future program sets a prime model of government-industry-academia partnership, propelling the development of the U.S. semiconductor technology workforce,” Li said in a UW News press release. “This initiative stands out with an emphasis on international collaboration, providing students with invaluable insights and experience into the industry’s international supply chain dynamics.”
Li directs the Laboratory of Photonic Systems at the UW, where he and his research team study integrated photonic systems, optoelectronic materials, and quantum phenomena. He develops novel devices and new technologies for communication and computation, optical sensing, imaging, infrared detection, chemical and biomedical sensing, and neuroscience. Li has worked with CoMotion at the UW to develop and license technologies he has created, and he has received support from their Innovation Gap Fund. He is also a faculty member of the Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems at the UW and QuantumX, which pioneers the development of quantum-enabled technologies at the University.
[post_title] => Designing next-generation chips at UW ECE
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