As the semiconductors that power the chips and lasers responsible for computing information shrink down to the nano-scale, they produce higher levels of electrical resistance and capacitance that ultimately slow performance. In recent years a research team, led by University of Toronto professors Doug Perovic (MSE) and Geoffrey Ozin of the Department of Chemistry, has been seeking to solve this problem by creating a new class of materials.
The material, known as periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO), is a thin nano-porous film. It was created by mixing an organosilica precursor containing organic groups with a surfactant in an aqueous solution which causes the organosilica to self-assemble into a nano-structure. When the surfactant was washed away, it left a nano-porous material, which the researchers discovered made an excellent dielectric material that could significantly improve the speed and reduce crosstalk of information transferred between the tiny wires inside microelectronic devices. The PMO acts as a better dielectric, allowing transistor components to shrink even further.
“We recently developed a vapour phase delivery technique, called vacuum assisted aerosol deposition (VAAD), and have investigated the properties most related to low-k [low dielectric constant] applications,” says materials chemistry PhD student Wendong Wang (Chemistry), who developed the technique. The PMO thin films used in the VAAD technique possess a combination of properties that satisfy the immediate and long-term
needs of the semiconductor industry.
In April, Wang presented the team’s research findings at the Materials Research Society’s spring meeting in San Francisco to overwhelming interest from industry. “Intel started calling us right away,” says Professor Perovic.
Follow the link to read the full article in Engineering Dimensions.
In the midst of a blistering heat wave, most Torontonians aren’t thinking much about frigid temperatures, ice and winter spills. But in a special laboratory at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, walking is a perilous — and chilly — experience for volunteers like Varun Ohri.
A 20-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., Ohri is walking for science. Or falling for science, if his supervisor, Jennifer Hsu (MIE, IBBME) is lucky. Ms. Hsu is a biomedical engineer and PhD candidate who specializes in gait biomechanics. She is currently working on a project at this University of Toronto-affiliated hospital that is designed to tease out the hows and whys of winter falls, and most particularly whether they can be avoided.
Ms. Hsu is doing the work for Canada Post, with a grant from Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. “Canada Post really wants to be able to protect their employees. So one of the problems that they know exists is that a lot of people slip and fall,” she says. “So they want to sort of nip it in the bud.”
With so many shale gas reserves available, major energy companies around the world are racing to start drilling. This carries some big environmental risks, but the upside is too great to ignore. Shale gas could one day lower fuel prices, rein in dependence on foreign oil and shrink carbon emissions. “A few years downstream, maybe in the next decade, there will be an energy shortage,” says Olev Trass, a chemical engineering and applied chemistry professor at the University of Toronto. “Shale gas really gives a respite to this whole crisis.”
The shot that kicked off the shale-gas rush came in the form of advancements in horizontal drilling—where a drill turns sideways after boring vertically—and hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a process that uses millions of gallons of high pressure liquid to expand cracks in rock and allow gas to leech out. The techniques have made deposits once far too expensive to access viable, and have caught the interest of fuel giants like Shell, ExxonMobil, Encana, Statoil, and smaller firms like Denver-based Forest Oil and Calgary-based Talisman Energy, both of whom are drilling on the Utica shale in southern Quebec, which is thought to hold over a trillion cubic metres of gas. Billions of dollars have also been invested in exploration and drilling projects in India, China, Australia, Russia and Germany since the mid 2000s.
Follow the link to read the full article in Maclean’s magazine.
Professor Doug Reeve has been named the 2010 recipient of the R. S. Jane Memorial Award by the Canadian Society of Chemical Engineering (CSChE). This is the premier award presented by CSChE and recognizes an individual who has made an exceptional achievement in the field of chemical engineering or industrial chemistry.
Professor Reeve, who is Chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, is an internationally recognized leader in the field of pulp and paper research. He helped to develop the Rapson-Reeve Closed Cycle Mill, which was designed to eliminate the principal cause of pulp mill water pollution.
In 1987 Professor Reeve founded the University of Toronto Pulp and Paper Centre (PPC), an educational and research institution which is housed in Chemical Engineering. The PPC encourages collaborative research with industry partners. During his 14-year term as Director, the Centre attracted more than $25-million for research programs with financial support from 45 companies in seven countries.
He is also an innovator in industry education, having worked closely with the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) to develop courses in pulp bleaching and kraft recovery, which have been taught throughout North America.
In recent years, Professor Reeve has turned his attention towards developing the leadership curriculum within the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering as co-director of the Leaders of Tomorrow (LOT) program. LOT is a curricular and co-curricular program that seeks to develop the leadership skills of young engineers through workshops, seminars and special events. He will serve as the inaugural Director of the Faculty’s recently established Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (iLead), which will be home to the LOT program as well as be a centre for teaching, research and outreach on leadership education.
Professor Reeve has been previously recognized with the University of Toronto Alumni Association’s 2009 Carolyn Tuohy Impact on Public Policy Award and was inducted into the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in 2008. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the International Academy of Wood Science, the Chemical Institute of Canada and TAPPI. In 1998, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Technology from the Helsinki University of Technology.
Professor Reeve will receive the award at the 60th Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference, to be held October 24 to 27, 2010 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
University of Toronto spinoff company Interface Biologics Inc. has announced the signing of an evaluation and exclusive license option agreement with Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s largest integrated provider of dialysis products and services. Under the agreement, Fresenius Medical Care will evaluate the use and efficacy of IBI’s EndexoTM technology to various components of Fresenius Medical Cares’ dialysis circuits for treating end-stage renal disease, including dialyzers and blood lines. Following the completion of this evaluation, Fresenius Medical Care can exercise an option to obtain an exclusive, worldwide license to incorporate IBI’s EndexoTM technology in dialysis circuits used for treatment of chronic kidney disease patients in all patient care settings.
Interface Biologics was founded by Professor Paul Santerre, Director of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), based on his groundbreaking work on improving the biocompatibility of medical implants. The company has hired several U of T graduates, and has Faculty of Medicine professors on its advisory teams, along with Prof. Santerre as Chief Scientific Officer. In July 2005, Interface Biologics moved into Toronto’s MaRS Innovation Centre.
This is Interface Biologics’s third agreement finalized over the past six months; the company’s first products were PICC catheter lines which are now undergoing Food and Drug Administration regulatory procedures and are anticipated to be on the market in early 2011.
Follow the link to read the announcement on Interface Biologics Inc.’s website.
The ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture (SIGARCH) has presented its 2010 Maurice Wilkes Award to Professor Andreas Moshovos (ECE) for his contributions to the development of memory-dependence prediction. This technique, used by high-performance microprocessors that execute memory-access operations, provides many applications in boosting memory-system performance and reducing processor-design complexity. The award, which carries a prize of $2,500, was presented at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA) in St. Malo, France, in June.
Professor Moshovos leads the University of Toronto’s AENAO research group, which is developing performance- and power-related technologies for single- and multi-core processors. His contributions to memory-dependence prediction represent a novel solution to the decades-old problem of memory aliasing in which a data location in memory can be accessed through different symbolic names in the program. As a result, aliasing makes it particularly difficult to understand, analyze and optimize programs.
“We are extremely proud that the Association for Computing Machinery has recognized Professor Moshovos’s outstanding contributions to memory-dependence prediction,” said Cristina Amon, Dean, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. “This honour confirms the global impact of the research being conducted at the Faculty and the outstanding reputation our professors have earned.”
As a professor at Northwestern University in Illinois, Professor Moshovos received a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation in 2000. He also won the IBM Faculty Partnership awards in 2008 and 2009, and was selected by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for Micro Top Pick paper awards in 2005 and 2010. With colleagues from the University of Toronto, he was granted a Semiconductor Research Corporation Inventor Recognition Award. Professor Moshovos graduated from the University of Heraklion, Greece with an undergraduate degree and an M.S., and was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Maurice Wilkes Award, the only mid-career award offered by ACM SIGARCH, is given annually for an outstanding contribution to computer architecture made by an individual in a computer-related profession for 20 years or less. It is named in honor of Maurice Wilkes, a recipient of the ACM A.M. Turing Award in 1967, who is best known as the builder and designer of the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), the first computer with an internally stored program.
Follow the link to read the article on Dr. Dobb’s, and to read the press release on InfoTech News.