Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois
ANSWER THE QUESTIONS AND QUESTION THE ANSWERS.
Every day, ECE Illinois students share moments of discovery — whether it’s that instant in the classroom when a complex subject suddenly makes sense or when challenges in the lab lead to a bold new solution. With outstanding peers as their co-conspirators and accomplished faculty members as their guides, our students answer the questions and question the answers on a journey to a bold new world. And every year, we invite the best of the next generation to join us on that quest. Welcome to the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois. And welcome to the start of a journey that will take you wherever you want to go.
www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney
Setting the Standard for undergraduate education. Our exceptional undergraduate curriculum is designed to build your fundamental knowledge and skills while providing a foundation for any number of exciting careers. You’ll discover dynamic classes that engage your interests from day one, including ECE 444, which grants you access to one of the nation’s first undergraduate semiconductor fabrication laboratories. Throughout your undergraduate experience, you’ll enjoy exposure to a wide range of challenging fields, as well as the support of a department that actively encourages students through nearly 100 scholarships and the ECE James Scholar Program, which recognizes our most outstanding students. Don’t take our word for it. Visit our website, and get the inside story from students who made ECE Illinois their first step on their path to exciting careers. www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney Plasma research in the Laboratory for Optical Physics and Engineering.
DESIGNED TO BUILD YOUR FUNDAMENTAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS.
REACH FURTHER. ACHIEVE MORE. As a first-year undergraduate here, you’ll explore ECE 110, an exceptional, hands-on introduction to circuits, electromagnetics, electronics, control, and digital systems. Working in teams, you’ll design and build the circuitry necessary to transform a miniature car into a self-steering, sensor-navigated vehicle. This dynamic course provides a substantive introduction to ECE and the first step in an undergraduate program second to none in the core areas of fundamental physics, mathematics, engineering theory, practical lab work, and technical leadership skills. See it all for yourself. Go inside the lab with great online videos, including actual footage of an ECE 110 car in action.
A proud ECE 110 student shows off a robot that’s ready to rumble.
“It’s the best undergraduate education in engineering you can get … It taught me how to think, solve problems, debug in the lab, and — most importantly — helped me land my first job in the semiconductor industry.” — Dirk Meyer President and CeO, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. BSEE ‘83
www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney Students engineering a slide whistle in ECE 395, Advanced Digital Projects Lab.
WORK WITH LEADING MINDS FROM YOUR GENERATION.
Where Leaders Lead. As one of the nation’s top-ranked electrical and computer engineering programs, ECE Illinois is a magnet for the world’s best students. Because of our stringent admissions standards, you’ll be working with the leading minds of your generation in a process that produces skilled graduates in high demand by the world’s top employers. Every year, Fortune 500 corporations and leading labs return to our campus in search of the next generation of leaders, reflecting the value of an ECE Illinois degree and the success of a program that’s different from day one. Discover the power of your potential. Check out the latest recruitment and salary statistics for ECE Illinois graduates, available now on our website. www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney
ONE STEP BEYOND: THE VALUE OF A GRADUATE DEGREE. When you’re ready for the next step, we offer an exceptional masters and PhD program designed to help you go deeper, explore further, and accomplish more. Through our post-graduate degree programs, you’ll partner with exceptional professors and fellow graduate students whose ambition is matched only by their passion for discovery, in courses that yield new insights in emerging and specialized technology. Through a graduate course built on one of the nation’s top undergraduate programs, you’ll enhance the value of your degree while expanding your opportunities far beyond the classroom door. Connect with the best. To find faculty members currently working in your area of interest, try our online search tool.
www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney Exploring power and its potential in the Grainger Electrical Machinery Lab.
“ECE Illinois provides a rigorous mathematical foundation that’s very difficult to acquire once you leave school, but also pays enough attention to applied problems to ‘keep it real.’ The school’s reputation is also a great selling point when starting a career.” — Steve Sullivan
senior technology officer
lucasfilm
MSEE ‘91, PhD ‘ 97
It Starts at the Top. It takes the best to lead the best. And at ECE Illinois, you’ll enjoy instruction from and interaction with faculty who are leaders within their fields. In the classroom and in the lab, they’ll educate and inspire you. And, during the course of your education here, you’ll benefit from the wealth of knowledge and diversity of experiences this group of more than 100
At ECE Illinois, faculty members pursue their varied
seasoned experts can provide. Our outstanding faculty
interests in a rich, multidisciplinary environment
and their broad range of interests, encompassing virtually
that encourages new discoveries at the crossroads
every specialty area within electrical and computer
of science. Many of our professors conduct
engineering, offer an asset few universities can match.
interdisciplinary research, holding joint appointments in chemical engineering, computer science, materials science and engineering, bioengineering, and physics. And the discoveries you’ll make together will take you places where few others have dared to explore. Go beyond the bio. Our website features in-depth profiles on the faculty who will play a critical role in guiding your career.
“[At ECE Illinois] I received training from the best experts in the field.” Prith Banerjee Senior VP of Research Director of HP Labs MSEE ‘83, PhD ‘85
www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney
RESEARCH: FROM THE LAB TO THE FOREFRONT.
It takes more than insight and determination to build one of the world’s top electrical and computer engineering programs. It takes a commitment to pioneering research on a massive scale — from highly focused study at the nano level to the investigation of largescale networks and how they interact to provide integrated solutions. At ECE Illinois, you’ll be part of a dynamic program that’s collaborative, innovative, interdisciplinary, and intense, with many advanced research opportunities available for those at the graduate level. There’s virtually no field of endeavor within computer and electrical engineering that’s beyond our scope, which means you’ll be engaged in a passionate quest for answers at the forefront of innovation, pioneering the breakthroughs today that will provide a platform of discovery for generations to come. See where tomorrow’s discoveries are taking place today. For a complete list of current research areas, visit our website today.
www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney Undergraduates hard at work in the ECE 444 Integrated Circuit Fabrication Lab.
DISCOVER RESEARCH CENTERS SECOND TO NONE.
Exceptional opportunities abound for ECE Illinois students. With more than 80 research centers and labs, the University
This major technological
of Illinois is one of the largest research institutions in the
advance represents a multi-
world. On the engineering campus alone, you’ll find many
year collaboration between
large-scale interdisciplinary research facilities, including the
Illinois, IBM, and dozens
Coordinated Science Lab (CSL) and the National Center for
of universities, colleges,
Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Other vital engineering
research labs, and institutes,
research centers include the Beckman Institute for Advanced
supported by a $208-million
Science and Technology, one of the most comprehensive
grant from the National
interdisciplinary facilities ever built, and the Micro and
Science Foundation.
Nanotechnology Lab (MNTL), one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated university-based labs for semi-
More great student
conductor, nanotechnology, and biotechnology research.
opportunities lie just south of campus in Research Park
Today, Illinois is expanding on its long history of computer
at the University of Illinois,
technology innovation and leadership with the Blue Waters
a primary destination for
project. When completed in 2011, Blue Waters will be the
companies looking for
world’s first sustained petascale computational system
outstanding student interns
dedicated to open scientific research. Housed within the
and employees. This area is
NCSA, this powerful system will be used by the nation’s
also home to EnterpriseWorks,
top scientists in pursuit of discoveries we can only begin
a separate facility within
to imagine today, simulating new medicines, materials,
the park that serves as an
weather, disease outbreaks, and complex engineering
incubator for technology-
systems like power plants and aircraft.
driven startup companies.
™
www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney An advanced anechoic chamber provides the perfect location for testing the latest antennas.
john bardeen
co-INVENTOR OF THE transistor
A History of Forward Thinking. If you want to know a program’s future, look to its past. Ours includes more than its share of giants whose pioneering work has touched every field of human endeavor. From the light-emitting diode, to the plasma display panel, to the quantumwell lasers that carry phone calls over fiber
While working at Bell Labs in 1947, Bardeen, along with colleagues Walter Brattain and
optic cables, discoveries by ECE Illinois faculty,
William Shockley, invented the first transistor, laying the foundation required for nearly
students, and alumni have changed the way
all modern electronics. Not long after, Bardeen joined the electrical engineering and physics
we interact with the world. But among those
faculty at Illinois, where he continued to light the path for future generations. In 1952, he taught
who have had the most significant impact
the first course on semiconductors and transistors ever offered at a university in what is now
on modern electronics are two legends who
Everitt Lab. And, in 1972, he joined Leon Cooper and J.R. Schrieffer in developing the theory
share more than an ECE Illinois connection.
of superconductivity, earning his second Nobel distinction. In 1990, LIFE ® Magazine included
Shortly after World War II, John Bardeen
Bardeen in its list of the 100 most important Americans of the century, while Time Magazine
and Jack Kilby provided two major break-
named him one of the “Century’s Greatest Minds” in 1999.
throughs that together heralded the arrival of a new technological age, earning each a
Building on Bardeen’s transistor breakthrough, Kilby, an ECE alumnus, invented the integrated
Nobel Prize.
circuit while working at Texas Instruments in 1958, thus providing another key development in the advance of modern electronic technology. In his lifetime, Kilby would go on to earn more than 60 patents, eventually taking his rightful place alongside Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, and Bardeen in the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
JACK KILBY
INVENTOR OF THE INTEGRATED CIRCUIT
Jack Kilby Photo courtesy of Texas Instruments.
Explore life outside the lab on a dynamic campus that’s as open to the possibilities as you are.
Find Your Edge at the Center of it All. Alone, it would be impressive. But ECE Illinois is part of an Conveniently centered between Chicago, Indianapolis, and St. Louis, the University of Illinois provides integrated experience much greater than the sum of its parts. an entertainment and cultural hub on par with the country’s leading cities. From Big Ten sports to It starts with the College of Engineering at Illinois — one Broadway productions and the hottest concert events, you’ll find it all going down under the dome of of the world’s most prestigious and largest engineering the Assembly Hall, while Krannert Center for the Performing Arts provides one of the nation’s premier institutions, with most undergraduate and graduate programs performing arts complexes, showcasing the world’s best in music, theatre, opera, and dance. ranked among the top five in the nation. And it continues with an exceptional university, vibrant campus, and diverse For those who prefer to “do” more than “watch,” the University’s sprawling campus provides endless community located at the crossroads of it all.
outdoor activities, along with a state-of-the-art recreation center that serves as a social hub for athletes at every performance level. From ice-skating to aquatics and all points in between, the Campus Recreation Department provides active students with countless worlds to explore. Beyond campus, you’ll discover a diverse downtown scene with a thriving nightlife, as well as many small, rural towns that welcome visitors to explore the pleasures of more relaxed living through a number of annual festivals and events.
www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney Students enjoying a beautiful afternoon on the tree-lined “Quad” at the heart of campus, with the Illini Union in the background.
Change Tomorrow. Starting Today. This is where the journey begins. In an elite program that answers the questions and questions the answers in a never-ending search for better solutions. Here, the world’s top minds come together in cutting-edge research that’s opening new doors and pushing the limits of technology in all its dimensions. And you could be part of that team, changing tomorrow through an exceptional program that’s leading the world today.
www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney Two undergraduates prepare for serious fun with a computer-controlled foosball opponent of their own design.
For More Information To apply online, or to learn more about ECE Illinois including our current rankings, statistics, and essential information for incoming students, visit www.ece.illinois.edu/startthejourney Or contact the advising office today at 217.333.0716.
Engineering Campus Tours Seeing is believing. And there’s no better way to see ECE Illinois than a free, guided campus tour. Explore campus. See the sights. And end your day of discovery with a relaxed and informal Q&A with a College of Engineering dean or academic advisor. To learn more, call us today at 217.333.0824.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois 156 Everitt Laboratory 1406 West Green Street Urbana, Illinois 61801 www.ece.illinois.edu