Industry

Berkeley engineering students pull off novel chip design in a single semester

06/17/21 — In an advanced circuit design course, 19 students with no prior experience in chip design went from basic introductions to tape-out by the end of a four-month period, resulting in a novel chip that will be manufactured this summer.

Materials science and engineering professor Junqiao Wu, photographed with a thermographic camera in Hearst Memorial Mining Building

The transformer

11/05/20 — Professor Junqiao Wu is developing next-gen technologies with vanadium dioxide, a compound that can change from an insulator to a metal.

Materials sciences professor Ramamoorthy Ramesh named to Royal Society

04/29/20 — Ramesh has created nanosized materials that can power small electrical devices with minimal amounts of energy

Technology developed by Berkeley robotics researchers put to real world use

01/29/20 New York Times — Covariant, an AI robotics company built on research that began at Berkeley, is garnering attention in the world of industrial automation.

Is spaghetti the key to building a better robot?

01/22/20 — Studying how spaghetti reacts to water might offer clues to how robots built from flexible materials can better mimic human movement, according to Oliver O'Reilly, professor of mechanical engineering.

French ambassador says global institutions needed to confront technology challenges

01/16/20 — Philippe Étienne said the quickening pace of technological change requires nations to immediately build “shared governance” of the internet through both existing and perhaps new global institutions.

UC Berkeley professor influences Facebook’s efforts to combat deepfakes

01/14/20 — The social media giant hired Hany Farid to help it detect fake videos, but Farid says company's new policy is problematic.

Our energy grid is vulnerable; locally sourced power may be the answer

10/11/19 — Alexandra “Sascha” von Meier, adjunct professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, talks about the risks posed by the current energy grid and possible solutions moving forward, including solar-powered microgrids.

Berkeley Engineering is #3 in U.S. News rankings

09/09/19 U.S. News & World Report — Berkeley Engineering's undergraduate program was again ranked third overall and the top public engineering school by U.S. News & World Report. Eight individual engineering programs were ranked among the top 5 in their respective fields, and all were in the top 10.

Sally Floyd, who helped things run smoothly online, dies at 69

09/05/19 New York Times — Sally Floyd (Ph.D '89, EECS) was one of the inventors of Random Early Detection, which continues to play a vital role in the stability of the internet. She passed away on August 25.

Fletcher Lab’s mobile phone-based microscope receives Gates Foundation support

08/27/19 — The Gates Foundation awarded a grant to Berkeley in July 2019 to support the scaled-up production of the LoaScope, a mobile phone-based microscope developed by bioengineering professor Daniel Fletcher and researchers in his bioengineering laboratory.

Jerome R. Singer, MRI pioneer, dies at 97

08/06/19 — Jerome R. Singer, professor emeritus and a pioneer in the field of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), passed away in July. Singer taught and conducted research in the electrical engineering and computer sciences and the biophysics departments at Berkeley for 25 years.

New chip could lead to cheaper and better medical imaging devices and self-driving cars

08/06/19 — Berkeley engineers have created the fastest silicon-based, programmable two-dimensional optical phased array, which could improve medical imaging, optical communications and LiDAR sensors.

George Leitmann on rocket test track, Naval Ordnance Test Station, China Lake

Bancroft Library oral history, podcast highlight Berkeley Engineering achievements

08/01/19 — Berkeley Engineering's contributions to the rise of the semiconductor industry were featured in a recent library podcast, while mechanical engineering professor emeritus George Leitmann was interviewed for an oral history project.

Government-funded research increasingly fuels innovation

06/20/19 — New research shows that cuts in federal funding for science might endanger the innovation that increasingly fuels the modern economy.

Berkeley research makes lead pipes safe

04/03/19 American Chemical Society — UC Berkeley researchers develop a rapid, cost-effective method to make lead pipes safe.

The fast track to being a CEO-Engineer

03/08/19 Bloomberg Businessweek — Interest in combined programs that allow students to earn a degree in both engineering and business - like Berkeley's Management, Entrepreneurship, & Technology (MET) program - is increasing among students and prospective employers.

Berkeley launches accelerator to support blockchain startups

01/29/19 — UC Berkeley is launching a new blockchain-focused accelerator. The Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator will help entrepreneurs pursue ventures in the blockchain space, tap into the vast resources of the campus and Silicon Valley, and receive expert industry guidance to create high-value blockchain startups.

‘Ambidextrous’ robots could dramatically speed e-commerce

01/16/19 — In a new paper, Berkeley engineers build on 35 years of research with new algorithms that compute robust robot pick points, enabling robot grasping of a diverse range of products without training.

New quantum material could take computers beyond semiconductors

12/03/18 — Researchers from Intel Corp. and UC Berkeley's MSE are looking beyond current transistor technology and preparing the way for a new type of memory and logic circuit that could someday be in every computer on the planet.