Paul M Chau

Associate Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering

Design of Very Large Scale Integrated circuits or VLSI chips for communications, computer engineering, VLSI digital Signal Processing [VLSI-DSP], application/algorithm-specific integrated circuit [ASIC] chip design, computer-aided design [CAD] tools, adaptive signal processing, electronic neural networks.

Professor Chau has contributed to reduced complexity hardware architectures for VLSI signal processing in communications applications. VLSI refers to the cutting edge in microchips built using large volumes of very small and rapidly switching transistors. Chau is an expert on a range of pertinent topics including adaptive signal processors (which can adjust to changing conditions to filter out noise or interference), custom-made integrated circuits or ASICs, and electronic neural networks. He has developed high-level CAD tools to aid in rapid prototyping electronics. His work has implications for a number of areas, among th em: the development of satellite communications subsystems; wireless communications in battlefield management, including radiation tolerant computing; advanced signal processing algorithms; and the estimation of power dissipation of VLSI signal processing chips, a pressing concern as power looms as a limiting factor in performance and realizability of microcircuits.

Capsule Bio:

Paul M. Chau joined the UCSD faculty in 1993 and manages the VLSI-DSP Research Group. He was formerly with the General Electric Military Electronic System Organization for seven years in various radar/sonar signal processing assignments. He was recipient of an NSF Research Initiation Investigator Award; Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions of Circuits and Systems; Co-Chairman of 1994 IEEE's VLSI Signal Processing Conference; Co-Chairman of SPIE's (the international society for optical engineering) VLSI Algorithms and Architecture Conferences. He received his Ph.D., Cornell University in Electrical Engineering in 1987.