InVisage Technologies Inc., a Silicon Valley-based start-up company founded by Professor Ted Sargent (ECE) that is revolutionizing the image sensor market, has announced that it has received its Series C round of venture funding, led by Intel Capital. The undisclosed amount will be used to bring the company’s breakthrough QuantumFilm technology and products into mass production. Intel Capital joins InVisage’s existing investors RockPort Capital, InterWest Partners, OnPoint Technologies, and Charles River Ventures.
“Image sensors for smart phones and handheld devices are a huge market opportunity, and InVisage is well positioned to capture significant market share,” says Dave Flanagan, Managing Director, Intel Capital. “InVisage is the first company in awhile to think differently about image sensors, and we are confident that its products will lead the imaging market on a new vector of innovation.”
QuantumFilm was developed by InVisage after years of research at the University of Toronto and at InVisage. The technology is based on quantum dots — semiconductors with unique light-capture properties. QuantumFilm works by capturing an imprint of a light image and then using the silicon beneath it to read out the image and turn it into versatile digital signals. InVisage spent three years engineering the quantum dot material to produce highly sensitive image sensors that integrate with standard CMOS manufacturing processes. The first application of QuantumFilm will enable high performance in tiny form factors, breaking silicon’s inherent performance-resolution tradeoff.
Initially targeting cameraphone applications, which are the largest and fastest growing portion of the image sensor market, InVisage Technologies’ QuantumFilm could be in devices early next year.
Follow the link to read the full media release.
Whitby may be the worst place for per capita CO2 emissions in the GTA — 13.02 tonnes — but it has plenty of bad company in areas surrounding Toronto, according to a recent report from two Canadian researchers.
“Whitby’s the highest, but if you look at the figures you’ll see it’s really the whole suburbs, it’s basically the 905,’’ says Dan Hoornweg, lead urban specialist at the World Bank. Hoornweg, together with University of Toronto master’s student Lorraine Sugar, co-authored a report called Cities and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Moving Forward.
The report was published in the Jan. 10 edition of Environment and Urbanization.
The researchers used data from energy-use figures in the 2001 census and the Transportation Tomorrow survey, a cooperative compilation put together regularly by local and provincial governments. These were also part of another study published in 2006 that Hoornweg and Sugar used, produced by U of T Civil Engineering professor Chris Kennedy and student Jared R. Vandeweghe (BASc 0T6), analyzing residential greenhouse gas emissions in the Toronto metropolitan area.
What it shows may surprise those who think the congested downtown core is the problem. Looking at per capita neighbourhood carbon emissions, the report indicates that suburbanites produce more than downtowners.
Follow the link to read the full article on the Toronto Star website.
The winners of the inaugural IMPACT Student Choice Awards for Instructor and Teaching Assistant (TA) of the Year were announced last weekend at the annual Materials Science & Engineering Dinner Dance. Selected by the undergraduate student body “for dedication and excellence in teaching,” the 2011 awardees were Professor Zhirui Wang (Instructor of the Year, MSE 316S: Mechanical Behaviour of Materials / MSE 419F: Fracture & Failure Analysis) and Leo Monaco (MSE 1T0, MASc Candidate/TA of the Year, MSE 342F: Nanomaterials).
“It was wonderful to have awards for teaching that were voted on by students,” said Professor Jun Nogami, MSE Department Chair. “And it was great to see them presented by and in front of our students at the dinner-dance.”
The awardees received a framed certificate encased with several samples of impact testing from the ballistics experiment conducted in MSE 101, courtesy of Dr. Scott Ramsay. A plaque showing the names of each year’s awardees will be on permanent display in the MSE Department.
The IMPACT Student Choice Awards recognize an MSE undergraduate instructor and teaching assistant as selected by the student body each year. Named after MSE’s alumni and industry magazine, IMPACT, the title of the award makes reference to both materials testing and the influential effect of professional dedication and excellence.
Award candidates must be a MSE faculty member or graduate student and have taught at least one MSE undergraduate course in the previous calendar year.
Professor Baher Abdulhai (CivE) is helping people share information about traffic within a city by being part of the development of a Facebook-like platform called On-Line Network-Enabled Intelligent Transportation Systems (ONE-ITS).
ONE-ITS is a software platform and a national research society, including several other universities. It connects commuters, police, government officials and researchers at universities, helping them share information about traffic on their way to their destinations. The platform is geared at those interested in traffic research and, much like Facebook, is open to anyone who wants to join. It is focused on professionals who can share their expertise and share data about transportation and research.
“If there’s a problem on the freeway, people can know about it,” Abdulhai said.
Follow the link to read the full article on the IT World Canada website.
The Connaught Committee met Dec. 16 to make its final decision on the winners of the Innovation Award and the Summer Institute. The committee also invited three researchers to move forward with applications to the Global Challenge Award.
Founded in 1972, the Connaught Fund was created from the sale of Connaught Laboratories, which first mass-produced insulin, the Nobel award-winning discovery of U of T Professors Frederick Banting and Charles Best. The university has stewarded the fund in the years since, awarding more than $100 million to U of T researchers. Today, the fund invests nearly $4 million annually in emerging and established scholars.
The latest round of awards is the first under a new program architecture. After spending a year in consultation, the Connaught Committee designed a new suite of programs that would promote excellence in research and innovation across the disciplines, raise the profile of the university and help it recruit and retain scholars.
“The goal,” said Professor Paul Young (CivE), U of T’s Vice-President (Research), “is for the Connaught Fund to have a transformative impact on our community, just as its namesake the Connaught Laboratories did. We want to make sure that the Connaught Fund, which has been so critical in supporting the research of our scholars for the past three-plus decades, is being put to best use in today’s context—hence, the new suite of programs.”
Engineering’s Vice-Dean, Research received one of two Summer Institute Awards: Professor Stewart Aitchison (ECE) received $50,000 for the “International Symposium on Nanofabrication.” The symposium will bring together international graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and other scholars to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and creative new methods for research and innovation.
Ten scholars received between $30,000 and $80,000 each from the Connaught Innovation Award, which helps accelerate the development of promising technology and promote commercialization and knowledge transfer. Engineering’s researchers are:
- Mansoor Barati (MSE) for “Development of a technology for production of solar grade silicon”;
- Tom Chau (IBBME) for “Development of a brain-computer interface based on near-infrared spectroscopy”;
- Amr Helmy (ECE) for “The next generation diode laser products benefiting environmental and biomedical instruments”;
- Peter Lehn (ECE) for “The next generation in commercial solar photovoltaic system configuration: high voltage bipolar DC collector networks with distributed DC/DC converters”;
- Joyce Poon (ECE) for “Fabrication of coupling-modulated lasers”;
- Milica Radisic (IBBME, ChemE) for “Application of QHREDGS peptide in survival and expansion of human stem cells and their cardiovascular progeny”;
- Yu Sun (MIE) for “Automated adherent cell micoinjection”;
- Aaron Wheeler (Chemistry, IBBME) for “Detection of steroid hormones using digital microfluidics”; and
- Ning Yan (Forestry, ChemE) for “Developing NCC based antistatic coatings and conductive packaging materials as ESD protection products.”
Finally, the committee invited three applicants to move to the next stage of the Connaught Global Challenge Fund application process. The award of up to $1 million annually brings together some of the university’s top researchers with leaders from other sectors. Through its three program elements — the Connaught Distinguished Visiting Scholar, the Connaught International Symposium and the Connaught Research Cluster — the Global Challenge Fund will enhance the university’s contribution to important issues facing society.
“The Global Challenge Fund allows us to focus intently on a leading global challenge of the 21st century,” said Young, “and to support research that is truly transformative in scope.”
Based on letters of intent, teams led by three U of T researchers have been invited to make full applications to the committee, including Dimitrios Hatzinakos (ECE) for “SmartData: How to get smart about evolving intelligence and protecting data.”
“Our intent,” said Young of the redesign of the Connaught Fund programs, “is for the new program architecture to promote research excellence within the institution and to target funding to areas where traditional sources are currently limited.”
He went on to say that further announcements from the Connaught Committee are forthcoming. “We will soon be announcing the winners of the New Researcher Award, which helps new tenure-stream faculty members establish competitive research programs, and the McLean Award, which supports an emerging leader conducting basic research.”
Computer science junior Andy Velasquez at the University of Texas – Arlington College, has built and designed his personal computers for the last seven years.
Velasquez is trying to make each design smaller than the next, but the generation of heat and emissions grows as each computer shrinks.
“Excessive heat can slow the performance and efficiency of any device,” he said. “I find myself running out of ideas on how to control the heat. It’s an ongoing battle.”
Engineers around the world are tackling a similar problem as devices continue to shrink to microscopic levels, said U of T Engineering Dean Cristina Amon.
The Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering Dean spoke on the challenges of managing heat generation in devices. Dean Amon spoke to more than 200 students, faculty and visitors as part of Arlington’s College of Engineering’s Distinguished Speaker Series. The college’s faculty uses the series to invite engineers from across the country to speak on changing and recurring themes in engineering.
“As we continue to work with nanomaterials and construct smaller devices, the negative effect that heat has on their performance increases,” she said.
Follow the link to read the full article in The Shorthorn, the University of Texas – Arlington College’s student newspaper.