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The IEEE New York Section Executive Committee (2012)

Section Officers

Section chair: Balvinder Blah, Con Edison Co. Section vice chair (Chapter operations): Shu-Ping Chang, PhD: IBM Thomas J. Watson Center

Section vice chair (Section activities): Kai T. Chen, NYC Transit Section treasurer: Michael Haroutunian, NYC Transit

Section secretary: Wilson Milian, NYC Transit Past Section chairs: Darlene Rivera, McKissack & McKissack

David Horn: McKissack & McKissack

________________________________________________

Society chapter chairs

Broadcast Technology: William C. Miller, Mitag Media Technology,LLC Computational Intelligence: Alevoor Ravishankar Rao, PhD, IBM

Computer: Sofia K. Georgiadis, NYC Transit Communications: Konal Kumar, NYC Transit

Technology Management: David M. Weiss, Systra Consulting, Inc. Engineering in Medicine and Biology: Matthew R. Irwin, Visual MD.com

Instrument and Measurement: Steven Giavasis, Polytechnic Institute Power and Energy / Industrial Applications: Arnold Wong, Consolidated Edison

Vehicular Technology: Patrick McGettigan, LTK & Associates, and Mark Woodward, CH2M Hill Solid State Circuits/Electron Devices: Harish Krishnaswamy, Columbia University

Affinity Group Chairs

Graduates of the last decade (GOLD): Michael Haroutunian, NYC Transtit Life Members: Ralph Mazzatto, Independent consultant

Women in Engineering (WIE): Jean Redmond, Johnson Controls, Inc. Consultants Network: Martin Izaak, Urban Engineers

Section Committee chairs

Awards & Recognition: Wilson M. Milian, NYC Transit Operations & Procedures: William N.Coyne, Independent consultant

Career Guidance: Stanley Karoly, NYC Transit Chapter Organization/Society Liaison: Darlene E. Rivera, McKissack & McKissack

Conference Coordinator: Charles Rubenstein, PhD, Pratt Institute Education: Leon Nock, Independent consultant

Historian: Mel I. Olken, Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Power & Energy Magazine Long Range Planning: William Perlman, Independent consultant

Members-at-Large: Peter Mauzey, Independent consultant and Paul Sartori, Con Edison Co. Membership Development: Neil Weisenfeld, Con Edison Co.

Metro. Engineering Society Council: Michael Miller, Independent consultant Metro. Section Activities Council: Darlene E. Rivera, McKissack & McKissack

Professional Activities: Robert M. Pellegrino, Independent consultant Publications: Darlene E. Rivera, McKissack & McKissack

Publicity/Public Relations: Ken Vought, RT&T Consultants Special Events: Ralph Tapino, Independent consultant

Student Activities: Kim K. Smith, NYC College of Technology Tappan Zee Sub-Section: Robert M. Pellegrino, Independent consultant

Webmaster: Harold Ruchelman, Independent consultant

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I E E E

New York Section

Monitor

March, 2012, vol. 60, No. 3 Editor: Amitava Dutta-Roy, PhD, Life Fellow

CONTENTS

A few words from the editor

Quotation of the Month

Einstein and day

The Giants on whose Shoulders we stand today Birthdays in March

A Message from the New York Section Chair

Business Media Network as a Professional Marketing Tool LinkedIn: 10-point tips from a Consultant on Maximization of its Benefits

Marty Izaak, LSM

That’s what the IEEE Fellows do First in the Series by 2012 IEEE Fellow James Warnock (New York Section)

Energy Control Center of ConEd Celebrates 50 years after its commission

News report submitted by Mel I. Olken, LF Historian of the New York Section

IEEE – Your Track to Success PowerPoint Presentation given at ECE Dept, University of Maine, Orono, ME

Dr. Ron Brown, LSM, Chair IEEE Maine Section

Welcome to a space ride Presentation by Private Citizen Astronaut Dr. Gregory Olsen, LF

Selected slides from his presentation Links to his presentations given at the New York Section and at NYIT

See the anchor page

Review Solid-State Drives (SSD)

Samsung 830 series 256GB Dr. Amitava Dutta-Roy, Editor

Tidbits and Newsworthy How to choose your passwords

Thomas Friedman of New York Times interviews Bill Gates Tech Incubator for Women Selects First Graduating Class of Female-Founded Companies

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Contributors: NY Monitor thanks Marty Izaak, a member of the New York Section, Dr. James Warnock

of IBM and a 2012 Fellow, Mel I Olken, Life Fellow, editor-in-chief of Power & Energy Magazine and

historian of the New York Section, Dr. Ron Brown, LSM and the chair of the Maine Section, Astronaut

Dr. Gregory Olsen and his colleagues Jennifer Romano and Ivan Lam of GHO, and Bill Coyne for their

direct and indirect contributions to this month’s edition of the Monitor.

A few words from your editor

he word March is thought to have been derived from the word Martius which in the ancient

Roman language meant the God of War (Mars). Romans started their calendar year with Mars as

the first month of the year. Then in 1752 we adopted the Gregorian calendar and our year now

starts on January 1. There are many characterizations of March such as “When March comes in like a

lion it goes out like a lamb.” This year March came to New York area as a lamb but it seems that it will go

out nudging us a little more but not as fiercely as a chase by a lion. The early onset of spring might be

harmful from an ecological point of view but it certainly has helped the activities of our Section.

Our activities were started by student members who attended the IEEE Region 1 Student Conference.

Many student groups from our area won competitions that were set at that Conference. Our

congratulations go to all those participating students for their excellent team spirits. Please see the

March message from our Section chair for her report on the student activities.

At our Award Dinner Dance ceremony in February last we requested the newly minted IEEE Fellows if

they could write about their work in a language that our heterogeneous readership can understand. We

thought that it will also be good for the younger members to know what the IEEE Fellows are up to. One

day some of those young students will also become Fellows and we should encourage them in this. We

are happy that Dr. James Warnock, a 2012 Fellow took up the challenge and submitted the first essay of

our series that we earnestly hope that other Fellows will follow.

Dr. Ronald Brown, LSM and the Chair of the IEEE Maine Section is no stranger to us. In April 2011 he

wrote a very interesting article in the Monitor. He has again made us happy with his second article

underlining the advantage of engineering students joining the IEEE. Dr. Brown is passionate about

engineering education and the IEEE’s role in it. His presentation can be seen by clicking on the

appropriate tab on the anchor page. The presentation was first given at the Electrical and Computer

Engineering Department of the University of Maine, Orono, ME. We hope that in future we will be able

to count on further cooperation from Dr. Brown.

Dr. Gregory H. Olsen, LF was the speaker at our monthly joint PES/IAS/LMAG meeting on January 24 last.

He is the world’s third private citizen to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) on board the Soyuz

space ship. In response to our request Dr. Olsen has given his permission to include some slides from his

presentation in this issue of the Monitor. They can be seen by clicking on the thumbnail images on our

anchor page. His presentation at New York Institute of Technology can also be seen on YouTube. The

URL is given under Dr. Olsen’s item below.

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Albert Einstein

German-Swiss-American Physicist Developed the Theory of General Relativity on which

so many of our technical innovations depend March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now

know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will

be to know and understand.”

“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the

labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same

measure as I have received and am still receiving...”

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The house at 112 Mercer Street, Princeton, NJ where Albert Einstein lived for many years. Now it is used as a private residence.

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Fascinating facts from Einstein’s life . . .

Amitava Dutta-Roy, Editor

he day of Einstein’s birth could be written as 3.14. . . These are the first three digits of “pi” that

enter in many engineering, scientific and mathematical calculations. For this reason March 14 is

declared as the global “Pi” day. For all important dates in Einstein’s life please visit:

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Astro-Physics/albertEinstein.html

Did you know though Einstein’s general theory of relativity brought fame to his name the Nobel prize

was not for his work on that theory? The Nobel Prize citation was "for his services to Theoretical Physics,

and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect" (Nobel.org). The original paper on

photo electricity “On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light

year” was published by Einstein in 1905 when he was only 26 years old!

In recent years, some theoretical physicists postulated the existence of neutrinos that traveled at a

speed higher than the velocity of light, the core idea behind Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Some

experiments under Project Opera were conducted by the Albert Einstein for Fundamental Physics,

University of Bern, Switzerland that showed that indeed there were particles capable of traveling at

speed higher than c. Later, it was discovered that parts of the technical setup of Project Opera were

flawed. Last month scientists at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), Switzerland under

the guidance of Dr. Carlo Rubbia, also a Nobel Laureate, conducted new experiments. These

experiments — under the project name of Icarus* — showed that Albert Einstein was always right.

Nothing in our universe travels faster than light, i.e., 299792458meters (or 186,282miles) per second.

For these experiments neutrinos were fired from Geneva, Switzerland, the seat of CERN to the detectors

located 729.03km (or 453miles) away in Italy. How many electrical and computer engineers were

needed for Project Icarus? I leave it to your imagination!

*Icarus is a Greek mythical figure. The story revolves around the son of a master craftsman named

Daedalus. Icarus tried to escape from the Greek Island of Crete by flying out on wings constructed with

bird feathers and wax by his father. Daedalus’ instructions to Icarus were not to fly close to the sun that

could melt the wax. The son, however, being overjoyed with his ability and strength to fly and soared

higher and still higher. He slighted the fatherly instructions of Daedalus, the wax melted and Icarus fell

into the sea. With time the name Icarus so became popular that there are many characters in Greek and

modern plays under that name; various magazines also bear the name.

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Here is a list of the giants on the shoulders of whom we stand today . . . born in March

raditionalists may ask why we should mention their names in the pages of the Monitor at all. For,

many of them did not directly work as engineers and in these pages we are supposed to write

about topics that strictly relates to engineering. But engineering means different things to

different people. One definition says that it was, for example, “originally, the art of managing engines; in

its modern and extended sense, the art and science by which the mechanical properties of matter are

made useful to man in structures and machines; the occupation and work of an engineer”

(Brainyquote*). Another well known source widens the definition and states that “engineering is the

discipline, art, skill, profession, and technology of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical,

economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices,

systems, materials and process” (Wikipedia). Multidisciplinary engineering permeates down to

practically every facet of human endeavor one can think of: rocket science, communications, art (look at

the design facets of Apple and Bong & Olufsen computer and audio products), art forensics, computer-

aided music composition, smart phones, GPS, X-box, MP3 players, DNA analysis machines, 3-D IMAX and

so on. Electrical engineering is everywhere. But how did we get to this state? Certainly, not in a day!

Hence, we thought it would be appropriate to remember those giants who influenced our societies, our

culture, our thoughts, our music and, whether we are humble enough to admit or not, our engineering

profession as well. Many of our colleagues depend on one of those disciplines to make a living. The list

given here covers only the birthdays of notables that fell in March. We pay our homage to all those

giants. We have chosen very obvious names known in the western world. There must be many others

who should have been (and should be) remembered. If you know any such name please submit them to

whoever may be the current editor of the Monitor. Thank you for your help.

* http://www.brainyquote.com/words/en/engineering160143.html#ixzz1pncpAnKD

Those known to have been born in the month of March:

March 1, 1810 - October 17, 1849: Frédéric François Chopin: Polish-French composer and

virtuoso pianist

March 4, 1678 – July 28- 1741: Antonio Vivaldi: Italian Baroque composer, priest and violinist

March 5, 1475 – February 18, 1564: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni: Italian

painter, sculptor, poet, architect and engineer

March 5, 1887 – November 17, 1959: Heitor Vila Lobos : Brazilian composer of international

fame

March 7, 1872 – February 1, 1944: Piet Mondrian: Dutch painter

March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955: Albert Einstein: German-Swiss-American theoretical physicist

and Nobel Laureate who developed the theory of general relativity

March 21, 1685 – July 28, 1750: Johann Sebastian Bach : German composer, considered to be a

pillar of western classical music

March 23, 1910 – September 6, 1998: Akira Kurosawa: Japanese film director, screen writer and

producer

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March 24, 1881 – September 26, 1945: Bela Bartok: Hungarian composer

March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926: Harry Houdini: Hungarian-American magician, stunt-

performer and aviator

March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890: Vincent van Gogh: Dutch post-impressionist painter

A March message from Balvinder Blah,

IEEE Senior Member and Chair of IEEE

New York Section

n this issue of the Monitor, I would like to draw your attention to the IEEE Region 1 (Northeast USA)

Board meeting and the Region 1 Student Conference that I recently attended. This was the first time

the IEEE paired the Board meeting with the Student Conference so that the active members of the

student community would have an opportunity to mingle with the Region 1 Board

and the professional engineers volunteers of the IEEE.

Student members from NYU-Polytechnic University, Rutgers University, Manhattan

College, College of New Jersey, Suffolk University, Morgan State University, Cooper

Union, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY at Stonybrook, Hofstra University, and University of

Massachusetts participated in the following competitions:

Micromouse Competition: Students design a robot that analyzes the maze and returns back in

the shortest time. Manhattan College of our area won this competition.

Student Paper Competition: Students present technical papers. A team from Cooper Union of

our area won this competition

Ethics Competition: Students were given an ethical scenario which they had to discuss and then

present. Hofstra University of Long Island Section won this competition.

T-shirt design Competition: Students from different colleges designed IEEE T-shirts which were

then voted on at the conference. NYU-Poly of our section won this competition.

We should be proud of the accomplishments of the students who belong to our NY section. We should

further encourage them to succeed by staying involved in IEEE even beyond their college years.

Now let us look at some of the other things IEEE discussed at this weekend long conference. Members

who are interested in knowing where their information is stored when you become an IEEE member and

who can access it; the information is stored on a database called SAMIEEE. It is a Web based tool that

allows only authorized volunteers access the member data. This data is safely handled by the IEEE

volunteers to communicate with you.

Did you know IEEE-USA website offers the following to IEEE members?

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Careers site where jobs posted by the employers: http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers/

Members can get one free book a month: http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/ebooks/

Career webinars: http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers/webinars/

I encourage all our members to take advantage of these resources.

Balvinder Blah

2012 Chair, NY Section

The Maze used for the micromouse competition

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Robots in that roamed during the micromouse competition and the competitors’ names

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T-shirt design by student members

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Business Media as a Professional Networking Tool LinkedIn: 10-point tips from a Consultant on Maximization of its Benefits

Marty Izaak*

[A consultant, especially an independent service provider, in

face of fierce competition needs all available tools to market

his / her unique knowledge and skills. In the past those

marketing tools used to be words of mouth, networking with

people in familiar groups, and inserting classified ads in

newsletters, newspapers, trade magazines and professional

journals. The Internet has changed that scene. Now there are

many niche Websites on which a consultant can bank to

attract prospective clients. At the NY Monitor we are

committed to bring to the readers the experiences that well-

seasoned consultants have had with them. This article is the

first of the dos and don’ts with the Web-based network

LinkedIn written by a veteran consultant who has used the site

and found it useful

Another sure-fire way to draw attention to your skills is to let

the world know that you posses them by writing articles about

the technology in which you specialize. The media could be blogs, newsletters and other publications of

undisputed prestige that are accessible to the public. The IEEE NY Monitor welcomes papers on all

aspects of technologies. Please see the “Guidelines for the Authors” posted in the anchor page. The

Monitor is regularly scanned by the Internet search engines. Hence, you can include references to your

articles in your resume or Web based profile. It is best to stop here and go on with our consultant’s tips.

You will learn a lot. — Editor]

hile millions gape at the spectacular success of the social media network Facebook and its

not-too-distant cousin Tweeter the business folks spruce up their profiles and contacts in

Linkedin. (Linkedin share prices have been steadily going up since its IPO in May 2011.)

LinnkedIn is different from most networks that purport to bring together people who share similar

personal likes and dislikes. On the other hand, Lindkedin (launched in May 2003) strives to bring like-

minded professionals into contact with each other. LinkedIn is not the only one such network; there are

two others with similar objectives: Plaxo.com and ecademy.com. Both trail behind LinkedIn. As with

most Web-based business Linkedin started offering its services free of cost and the basic tier of the

network is still free. If you like more bells and whistles you may opt for a higher-tier paid service offered

by LinkedIn. Those of you who have not joined this network may do so by visiting www.linkedin.com and

following the prompts.

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Using LinkedIn to get in search of consulting work

LinkedIn is ideal for consultants to publicize their skills and experience so that all members of the

network can see them, thereby attracting companies or individuals who might need a person with those

skill sets and qualifications. In that sense, it is different from services in which HR departments of

companies advertise job offers that spell out qualifications needed from prospective applicants.

When consultants post their special skills in the LinkedIn, it is imperative that they write them in a way

that will maximize the chances of them being contacted by right clients. Just like any website owner, you

as a consultant would want your LinkedIn profile to stick out and be found! As a job applicant, you want

the same sort of thing. With that objective in mind we have below a 10-point list of essential matters

that you should consider while using LinkedIn. So, read on!

1. What does a personal photo mean in the business media network?

The insertion of your photograph really comes down to having social media credibility. There are too

many fake profiles on LinkedIn, so you want to show that you are real. If you have taken the time to

complete your LinkedIn profile, why wouldn’t you display your photo? It just raises too many potential

questions. Company logos or photos of pets obviously have no value here.

2. LinkedIn profile headline is not branded enough

See that space underneath your name? That is your “Professional” or Profile Headline. It will appear in

search results next to your name, as well as next to any questions you ask or reply to. It is, in essence,

your elevator speech in a few words. Are you thinking of just putting your title and company name here?

Don’t! This is the place where you need to appeal to anyone who finds you through a search to reach

out and look at your profile. Your Profile Headline is the single most important piece of real estate on

your LinkedIn Profile, and you need to brand it as such. This really ties into personal branding as a job

applicant.

3. LinkedIn Status Update is Not Appealing

This is that “Status Update” really meaning “what are you currently working on.” Assuming someone

finds you and looks up your profile, they will most probably examining what you have written here

simply because that it appears just underneath your Headline Profile. What have you written? Many

people in transition note that they are simply looking for a job. You should use the LinkedIn Status

Update to be more specific. It is part of your branding exercise, and it should be something appealing

that will inform the reader of your latest activities. Hopefully it should add to, not subtract from, your

LinkedIn Brand.

4. List companies where you worked in the past and the schools you attended

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In one of the ways in which you are found on LinkedIn is through searches on company names or

schools. If you are only listing your current company and/or not even displaying your college, you are

missing out on potentially being found. Companies you previously worked for are even more important

in that there are potentially more colleagues that may be trying to find you or recruiters trying to

network with you! You may be missing out!

5. Not having three LinkedIn recommendations

The act of not providing three recommendations is the same as not posting your personal photo on your

LinkedIn profile. Why? When you sign up for LinkedIn and first fill out your profile, LinkedIn suggests

that you give three LinkedIn recommendations. You need to do this in order to get your LinkedIn Profile

to 100% completion. Job postings on LinkedIn similarly require three LinkedIn Recommendations. These

recommendations can only work in your favor.

6. Too few connections

This topic is for debate, but too many people have too few connections on their LinkedIn Profile, and

thus are to be found with great difficulty. The idea is simple: when you do a search you will see results

from your network and vice-versa. So the more connections you have the more search results you will

appear in, pure and simple. Combine this with the concept of Windmill Networking that is about finding

value in online networking with people that you don’t know. So what are you waiting for?

7. Not listing three Websites

LinkedIn gives you the ability to list three websites on your profile. Are you taking advantage of it? Do

you have a Twitter profile or other social networking profile that you want to advertise? Do you have a

company Website or a blog that you enjoy reading? Anything that you would want associated with

yourself should be listed here. You will be adding to the search engine optimization of your own

Websites just by the fact that you list them here

8. Not claiming your personal URL

When you sign up with LinkedIn you are provided a public URL which you can then include on your email

signature or wherever else you want to lead people to your LinkedIn profile. You can customize this

when you edit your profile. Claiming your name here is one of the first things you should have done on

LinkedIn. Make sure you claim your LinkedIn URL before others do! As a job applicant you can definitely

stand out with this little tool.

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9. No Branded Summary Rich with Keywords

Assuming that someone finds you in a search result, likes your Profile Headline, and isn’t scared away by

your Status Update, the next most important part of your profile that the person will see would be your

Summary. This is the chance to fully brand yourself as a job seeker and ensure that any keywords that

you want associated with yourself are found here. You would also want to write something compelling,

just as you would in the executive summary of your resume. This is your stage to tell the world who you

are and what you can do! Utilize it to your fullest advantage!

10. No Job Descriptions

Even if you’ve listed positions at companies that you previously held, it means nothing if you don’t have

any job descriptions. Past and current job descriptions provide you the perfect opportunity to pepper

your profile with keywords that will help you get found. Why aren’t you taking advantage of this?

I hope that this article may help some consultants out there to become more visible by utilizing Linkedin

as marketing and/or networking tool.

Please direct all questions relating to this article to: m.izaak@ieee.org

_______________________________________

* Marty Izaak, IEEE Life Senior Member with more than 35 years of project/construction experience, is a

consultant with Urban Engineers of New York. As a senior consultant with a contract to the Federal

Transit Administration, Mr. Izaak is assigned the program management oversight of

major capital mega-construction projects such as those of New York’s East Side Access

and Second Avenue Subway projects. As a volunteer with the IEEE he has served the

organization in various positions, from being a member of the Board of Governors of

the IEEE Engineering Management Society (1982 -87) to PACE chair at the New York

Section (2007 – 2010). He was bestowed with many distinguished awards from the

IEEE. Currently, Mr. Izaak is a member of IEEE Region1 Board of Directors and serves

as the chairman of the Consultant’s Network of the IEEE New York Section. He is also the coordinator of

the activities for the Life Members Affinity Group in IEEE Region 1.

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A 2012 IEEE Fellow talks about his work as a researcher at IBM James Warnock*, a 2012 IEEE Fellow EEE

lthough my formal education is that of a physicist, having obtained my PhD degree in physics

from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before coming to IBM at the T.J. Watson

Research Center, I moved into the field of silicon technology and process integration shortly

after joining IBM. Working in the silicon facility at IBM in Yorktown Heights, I carried out research on

high speed bipolar, complementary bipolar, BiCMOS, and CMOS device and process integration. This

experience gave me a good understanding of what it takes to build and deliver advanced silicon

technologies, and has stood me in very good stead as I began my career, also at the T.J. Watson

Research Center, as a digital circuit designer. Since then, I have spent close to 20 years working on

various high-frequency microprocessors at IBM, leading global teams of circuit and physical design

engineers in our quest to build the most innovative and leading-edge designs in the industry.

The first microprocessor project I worked on represented a paradigm shift for IBM and the rest of the

mainframe industry, as it became obvious that the bipolar technology, which had been used very

successfully for many previous mainframe generations, had finally reached the end of the road, and

could not be scaled much further. These designs were facing a power crunch, not to mention the

complexities of trying to integrate a large number of discrete chips into a single high-performance

system. Many alternate possibilities were explored, including complementary bipolar circuits, BiCMOS

techniques, and even complementary BiCMOS. However, given the rapid pace of pure CMOS scaling and

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VLSI design technology, this appeared to be the most promising direction in which to take the

mainframe microprocessor designs. But could CMOS technology provide the performance levels needed

to match that of the ultra high-performance (and high power) bipolar circuitry, leveraging the much

higher CMOS integration density to overcome the intrinsic circuit performance deficit? Would hundreds

of logic, circuit, and system designers, not to mention the EDA support teams, be able to make the

switch to custom high-speed digital CMOS design? Could this all be done in time to save the business

and stave off competition from other companies using “more conventional” design approaches? The

answer to all these questions turned out to be a resounding “yes”, thanks to the efforts of all the

talented engineers who worked together to pull this off. At the time there were many pundits who had

announced the imminent death of the mainframe computer in the face of an onslaught of small and

cheap processors. But actually the transformation of the mainframe computer was enormously

successful, and it literally changed the world. System z continues to be a very important and profitable

part of IBM, providing the ultimate in security, reliability, availability, scalability and overall system

robustness for today’s critical business needs.

The project to develop the first high-performance CMOS-based mainframe computer was truly a

groundbreaking effort at IBM. Not only was the mainframe computer completely transformed as a

result of this work, but the circuit techniques and design methodologies that were developed provided

the foundation for the design of IBM’s future high-performance microprocessors. After the resounding

success of the S/390 re-design, we moved to apply the same techniques to IBM’s POWER systems, and

the design of the POWER4 microprocessor. This design (nicknamed internally as the “gigaprocessor”)

was meant to run at frequencies in excess of 1 GHz, taking a quantum leap in frequency compared to

IBM’s previous designs. It was also an aggressive 2-core design, marking the industry debut of general

multi-core processor chips, and marking the start of an industry trend towards multi-core systems on a

chip. Finally, to top it all off, the design was to be implemented in IBM’s new Silicon On Insulator (SOI)

technology. SOI technology was a novel experience for most of the design team (and for the EDA teams

as well), with a variety of hazards and subtleties associated with the floating body. Now, it was physically

possible for designers to build an electrical connection to the body of these new SOI transistors, but it

was highly impractical to do so on a large scale, given the excessive parasitic capacitance involved with

such connections, and the considerable silicon area that would have been required to connect to every

single FET body. So circuit designers had to give up control of the body voltage of the transistor, letting it

float at voltages determined only by internal leakage currents and capacitive coupling effects. Concerns

about this floating body drove a flurry of innovation and new ideas aimed at bounding the uncertainties

associated with the “history effect” caused by this floating body, i.e. the dependence of the body

voltage on the past history of the source, drain and gate voltages of the device in question. We faced

many unique circuit design challenges, but in the end we exceeded the original 1 GHz frequency target

by a good margin, and this design was another huge success for IBM. POWER4 allowed IBM to

consolidate two business lines onto one single microprocessor platform, saving considerable future

development expense, and streamlining IBM’s server microprocessor design effort. In addition the

POWER4 design and its successors moved IBM to dominance in the UNIX server market.

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Around the time of the release of the POWER4 design, IBM, Sony, and Toshiba were discussing plans to

start a joint venture to build a supercomputer on a chip, for use not only in Sony’s upcoming game

console (the Playstation 3TM, or PS3), but for potential use spanning a product space ranging from

consumer electronics to high-end massively parallel systems. This design, the Cell Broadband EngineTM

(or Cell BE for short), featured a POWER processor core along with 8 synergistic processor cores, all

connected via a new ring bus structure, and running at a frequency of 3.2 GHz. The chip power had to be

strictly limited: it had to fit within an envelope suitable for a game console, and the whole project was to

be implemented in IBM’s high-performance 90nm SOI technology. The circuit design was carried out by

a truly global team, spanning a wide variety of geographies, time zones, cultures, and languages. The

design teams faced a unique set of challenges imposed by the high-frequency targets along with a strict

set of power constraints. This drove us to build a set of self-timed pulsed-clock buffers with a complete

set of rules and design specifications to enable general usage by the whole circuit team. We also

supported the construction of dynamic multiplexor components in combination with cycle boundary

latches, again with all the rules and tools needed to enable usage by the whole circuit team. In addition,

there were specific test requirements needed to support the expected high manufacturing volumes,

leading us to build a variety of special features into the latches, flipflops, and local clocking circuitry with

high-speed testability in mind right from the beginning. The resulting microprocessor design received

world-wide attention not only as the heart of the PS3 gaming system from Sony, but also as a technical

tour de force in its own right. A modified version of the Cell BE design was later used in the Roadrunner

supercomputer, the first supercomputer to reach a sustained performance of 1 petaflop on the LINPACK

metric.

In turn, we leveraged the latch/test/clocking methodologies developed for the Cell BE program, adding

new features to improve soft error rate (SER) robustness along with the ability to adjust local clock

waveforms in a flexible manner, and applied these new components in a common fashion across both

System p and System z microprocessor programs, as well as continuing their use in microprocessors

targeted for the games consoles. POWER7 was the first product released with this new common set of

components, in 2010, as described in several papers at ISSCC (the IEEE International Solid State Circuits

Conference) that year. The zEnterpriseTM 196 system (z196 for short) was also released later in 2010,

using the same common design methodology and components.

As circuit design team lead for IBM’s System z designs, I led the circuit team for z196, again a global

team including designers from multiple locations in the United States, Germany, Israel and India. The

goal for this design was to take the high-frequency, previous-generation design, and move this forward

into IBM’s 45nm SOI technology, adding out-of-order execution for improved performance without

compromising on frequency. As even the most high-end chips reached the limits of practical power

densities and total system power, the design effort featured an intense focus on power reduction, which

was translated back to improved performance within the given system power constraints. Finally, to

boost performance even further, a large on-chip level 3 cache was added using high-density embedded

DRAM. The deep trenches used for the DRAM were also used as high-density capacitors employed

across the whole chip for decoupling in order to help mitigate power supply noise issues, further

boosting the final ship frequency. When completed, this chip set a new industry frequency record,

21

shipping at a core frequency of 5.2 GHz, as described in a paper presented at ISSCC in 2011. This was a

particularly notable achievement, coming as it did in an era where frequency gains have been very

difficult to come by, as technology scaling is finally closing in on certain fundamental limitations.

Looking forward to the future, it is clear that the circuit designers of these large high-performance

microprocessors will be facing many new, interesting and exciting challenges. As conventional

technology scaling comes under continued stress, radically new technology elements will appear in the

push towards ever higher performance and circuit density levels. This has already started with the

combination of high-k dielectrics and metal gates, changing the very heart of the silicon MOSFET. But it

will continue as devices are turned on their sides (finFETs) in an effort to keep short channel effects

under control and squeeze out still more performnce and density from nanoscale device structures.

Issues such as device variability will need continuing focus, especially as voltage supplies are pushed

down ever further in order to keep the chip power under control as integration density continues to

climb. Reliability will also be a key challenge as wire-interconnects are scaled down towards certain

basic fundamental limits. These will truly be exciting times, as circuit engineers are called upon to push

their designs forward into this rapidly changing technology landscape of nanoscale feature sizes.

_____________________________

*Jim Warnock, PhD is a Distinguished Engineer in IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, leading the

circuit design effort for IBM’s System z microprocessors. His interests include VLSI circuit design tools

and methodology, clocked storage elements, design for test, and design-technology interactions. He is

an author or co-author of over 170 publications, and holds over 25 patents. Dr. Warnock is also a

member of IBM’s Academy of Technology, a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the IEEE New York

Section.

IEEE – Your Track to Success

Ronald Brown

The slides that appear in the clickable media file in the anchor page have been taken

from a ECE 300-level seminar given at the Department of Electrical and Computer

Engineering (ECE) of the University of Maine by Dr. Ronald O. Brown who lives in

Maine. He, an IEEE Life Senior Members is currently the chair of the IEEE Maine

Section. Dr. Brown is a consultant and passionately interested in engineering

education, and the goals and work of the IEEE members. From time to time Dr.

Brown offers seminars that tell the students how beneficial it is to join the IEEE.

Hence, we invited him to share his presentation with us. Thank you Dr.Brown! All life members please

note that you can also follow what Dr. Brown is doing: encourage the youngsters to study engineering,

mathematics and science. This nation (and the world) needs more multidisciplinary engineers and

scientists. We have to do our part to uphold the IEEE’s motto: advancing technology for humanity.

22

Dr. Ronald O. Brown has been President of Ronald O. Brown Consulting for over 20 years. Prior to that

he was with RCA, Bell Labs, Bell Northern Research, GTE, and Coopers and Lybrand where he was

National Director of Network Consulting.

He conceived, designed, developed, and implemented both the world’s first CLEC and corporate-wide

integrated desktop systems. Dr. Brown also conceived, developed, and directed Northeastern

University’s widely recognized State-of-the-Art Program in telecommunications and networking.

His current practice largely emphasizes expert work in intellectual property, contracts, and anti-trust

matters. He has evaluated the market values of numerous patents for clients and prepared many

reports for the courts and testified them.

He received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Maine, Tufts

University, and Queen’s University at Kingston respectively.

Each slide contains speaker’s notes. We hope that you will find the presentation to be useful to your

students and younger colleagues for motivating them to join the IEEE.

Energy Control Center Celebrates 50th Birthday

(This news item was spotted and submitted by Mel Olken, Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Power & Energy

Magazine and the historian of the New York Section)

Fifty years ago, on March 3, 1962, Con Edison retired the "old" control center at 708 First Avenue and

moved operations to the then-new West End facility. Thanks to Dan Taft in System Operation and local

historian Joe Cunningham for reminding us of this important

milestone.

The article below and photos on this page appeared in the April 1962 issue of Con Edison's Around the System magazine.

New System Operation Center Is Activated

To those who work in New York’s financial district, a reference to the “Big Board” could only mean the New York Stock Exchange. We at Con Edison, however, particularly those assigned to the System Operation Department, will dispute that point. To the staff of that department, the real “Big Board” is the one they operate at 128 West End Avenue, site of the new System Operation Center. Actually the comparison is not a bad one. Each board affords the

23

instantaneous view of what is currently happening in the field it covers.

The new System Operation Board - to the untutored eye a 220-foot circular jumble of dials and lights-indicates the current status of generation, power interchange with other systems, power How in major transmission feeders, operative status of high voltage distribution feeders in Manhattan and the Bronx, status of gas supply sources, gas transfer system pressures and pressure conditions at monitoring points in the steam distribution system. By comparison, the less complex series of indicators on the floor of the Stock Exchange provides the broker with a view of the most recent transactions involving the 1,500 listed

stocks.

Con Edison’s “Big Board” was moved to its present location on March 3, but it will be another few months before the Center is in full operation. The gas and steam districts are still being monitored from their old location at 708 First Avenue. Also, the new Center, when complete, will contain a reception and viewing area for visitors, one section of which will allow guests to view the entire operation of the Board through a large picture window, with close-ups provided by closed-circuit television. The reception area will include an exhibit room and a small theatre.

By way of contrast, the old System Operation board at 708 First Avenue was located in this rather restricted area above the Waterside switch house, while...

24

The board's spanking new home provides plenty of working space. Only a small portion of the whole board, which extends around room for 220 ft., is shown in photo.

The site at 128 West End Avenue was chosen by a committee of engineering and operating representatives appointed to study the situation in 1959. By that time it had become apparent that the old Center, above the Waterside “switchhouse,” could accommodate no further expansion of the system. For 35 years the big room at 708 First Avenue had functioned as the nerve center of the Con Edison system, but the addition of many new substations and network distribution areas in Manhattan and the Bronx, plus the acquisition of the three transit generating stations, made the move to expanded quarters a necessity.

The West End location was a natural from the start. Work was to begin on a new substation there and, by acting quickly, the foundations and supporting columns for the System Operation Center could be incorporated in the specifications. Second, the neighborhood was excellent and offered good access to all means of public transportation. A third important consideration was that the necessary leased telephone wire facilities could be made available at reasonable cost, and with the desired diversity of cable routes.

And so the decision was made to relocate the Center to West End Avenue. When the building reached an advanced state of completion, preparation got under way for the move. Regardless of the day or time chosen to affect the transfer of operations, a number of problems had to be surmounted.

While most of the equipment at 708 First Avenue was duplicated at the new site, and the telephone circuits had been pre-tested by the telephone company, there were still masses of records and current papers which had to be transported across Manhattan with the greatest possible dispatch.

The hour 12:01 a.m., Saturday, March 3, was chosen as the time when the changeover could be made with the least interference to operations. Drivers stood by with the outgoing 4 to 12 shift at 708 First Avenue. The incoming 12 to 8 shift reported to the new location. Precisely at midnight all active papers were placed in special cartons, given to the waiting drivers, and whisked across town to the system

25

operators and district operators at West End Avenue. In less than half an hour, work on the active papers was picked up by the new shift, and the brief interruption went completely unnoticed. Thorough preparation and split-second timing paid off.

Now the essential portions of the transfer have been accomplished, and the staff of System Operation is comfortably settled in their new headquarters for what is hoped will be as long a run as the one they completed on March 3 at 708 First Avenue.

Don’t give up!

An inspiring message for the young generation from a distinguished electrical engineer, entrepreneur and an IEEE Life Fellow who, as the world’s third private citizen, spent his own resources to travel to spend his “vacation” inside the International Space Ship (ISS) that he dreamed of . . . Gregory H. Olsen*

“The most important –and hardest- thing for young people is not to let setbacks stand in their way.

“It is s-o-o-o- easy to give up…to think you are not good enough…that others are better. This is true in

academics, sports, acting –all things. The lesson I can pass on to others is that you can indeed succeed

without having the most amount of talent, or polish, or smartness, or money.

“The secret is: DON’T GIVE UP!”

“When I played Little League baseball, I was such a poor hitter that when I

was up at bat, the coach would tell me not to swing, so that I might get a

walk. Three years later, I was able to enter the All Star team in the Babe

Ruth league.

“When I was in my senior year of high school, I failed trigonometry. When I

applied to the engineering school at Fairleigh Dickinson University, they

laughed at me and said no, because of the trig. Undaunted, I enrolled in a

summer school, got an A, and indeed entered the EE curriculum, and

ultimately made it to the Dean’s List.

“At age 59 I was in training for my space mission in Moscow in 2004. A medical condition disqualified me

and I went home to NJ with my tail between my legs. I reapplied but was told no by the Russians –eight

times! On the ninth request, they allowed me back conditionally, and I got to fly in space.”

The lesson here? DON’T GIVE UP!!

______________________________

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*Dr. Gregory H. Olsen spent more than twenty million dollars of his own money to realize the dream he

always had: to travel to space. The dream came true when the Russian space vehicle Soyuz is blasted off

the earth. He is a living example of courage and tenacity for both the young and not-so-young. He even

had to learn the essential commands in Russian. Thus, the countdown started, naturally in Russian:

The above are the Russian equivalents of “ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero

before blast-off…not easy, right? But the IEEE Life Fellow and astronaut had to learn them to prepare for

his trip to space aboard the Russian Soyuz.

We invited Dr. Olsen to give a presentation at a monthly meeting sponsored by the PES/IAS/LMAG that

was held on January 24 of this year. Dr. Olsen gave us an awesome description of his advent to space;

the difficulties he had to convince the Russians that he could indeed bear the physical and mental strain

of a space flight. He described in detail his work inside the ISS, how he held his cameras, how he went

about the daily chores we take for granted— sipping a little water, brushing his teeth and even using the

toilet in zero-gravity environment. For engineers it is fascinating that so many mundane tasks are to be

thought of when designing space capsules or stations in the heaven. This is multidisciplinary engineering

in action!

Following the presentation we received many requests to make it available to our readers online. We

approached Dr. Olsen and the good news is that though the slides are copyrighted by him he gave us the

permission to show some of them on our Web site. His life’s journey through the study of electrical

engineering, entrepreneurship in founding several high-tech companies and ultimately the flight to

space is chronicled in his book with Thomas V. Lento “By Any Means Necessary, An Entrepreneur’s

Journey into Space,” GHO Ventures, LLC, Princeton, NJ, 2009, ISBN 978-0-615-34444-7. The book is

available from Amazon.com, $17.95.

We could not film Dr. Olsen’s presentation at the IEEE meeting. However, a similar presentation at New York Institute of Technology was recorded in video and you can see the entire presentation at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEyytj8W2zc.

We imagine that members of your school, college, university or club will be interested in inviting Dr.

Olsen to take through his presentation you may contact his firm through www.ghoventures.com. There

is nothing like seeing an astronaut in person, shaking hands with him and realizing that he is also human

being like we are. A lesson for the older engineers: if Dr. Olsen could fly to space at the age of 60, you

can also achieve much though it may not be space flight. We live longer, work harder and should

continue to do so. Don’t you think? —Editor.

27

Product review

Samsung Solid-State Drive

Amitava Dutta-Roy

Why do we might need a solid-state drive?

Believe it or not, one of the weakest components of a personal computer is its hard drive. It is a

mechanical contraption revolving at 7,200 (or higher) RPM with a read-write arm moving back and forth

very fast from the edge of the platter to its center. Like anything mechanical it will fail at some unknown

point of time. The question is not if or how it will fail. The question is when? And in spite of advance in

diagnostic tools for PCs it is anybody’s guess as to the timing of when.

From the beginning of the PC era prudent it was necessary to take utmost precaution against any

sudden loss of data that could occur anytime because of failure of a hard drive. Remember the 3.5”

1.44MB floppy drives in which users saved the fruits of their labor? (But the floppies themselves were

not all that reliable. They would lose their data if inadvertently placed in a strong magnetic field, for

example, in the vicinity of a high-powered speaker.) Over time floppy disks graduated to more sturdy Zip

drives made by Iomega. Their capacity went up first to 128MB and then to 256MB. What a big deal it

was then! When the PCs started proliferating and advanced memory-hugger software took over our

digital world we began generating tons of data often without any regard to their usefulness. Space

available on the floppies proved to be puny for saving such uncontrolled volumes of data. Thus, at that

time CD-ROMs became the reservoirs for data. Soon even the CDs were replaced by USB solid-state flash

drives that were quite expensive when they came into the market.

The price of flash drives has fallen much during the last few years, so much so that many companies now

save their product descriptions on those drives and hand them out to attendees at computer fairs. It is

cheaper that way than printing colored brochures. Now it is possible to purchase a 64GB USB flash drive,

made by say SanDisk, a reputed company, for about $60 from retailers such as Amazon.com. This is

equivalent to 94 cents per GB. Prices per GB of storage of good quality lower-capacity drives — 8, 16 or

32GB — are also are also about the same.

Certainly, the solid-state flash drives are useful. One can save data in the drives and safely carry them

around without being worried about any loss of data even when passing through magnetic security

gates. However, the quest was on to develop high-capacity solid-state drives (SSD) that could eventually

replace the mechanical hard drives that would give the users some peace of mind. Market studies

indicated that corporate road warriors, demanding heavy PC users and gaming enthusiasts would

welcome SSDs and were willing to pay premium prices for them not only because they would be more

rugged but their performances would be far superior to those of standard mechanical HDD.

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Enter SSDs

Finally, about two years ago high-capacity solid-state drives (SSD) hit the market. Still they are not

cheap, between $1.50 and $2.00 per GB of storage space. The heart of a SSD is NAND flash memory

chips. Rows and rows of such transistor chips store electrical charge representing bits of non-volatile

data. That means that the information once stored does not leak out even if the device is powered off.

The transistors are arranged in cell groups that the tiniest of them can hold 4kB of data that, in storage

parlance, is known as a page. It is the smallest group in which data may be written at one time. The cells

are organized in blocks of 128 pages. A block is the tiniest group that can be erased at one time. The

physics of the SSDs is such that it is faster to read data from them than to erase and rewrite new data on

them. That is about all we can say here about the physics of SSDs. However, it is important to

emphasize that because there is no moving part associated with the SSDs, the read-write processes are

much faster than those for mechanical HDDs and they are rugged. There is no worry about the position

of the HDD platter or the arm going out of alignment due to vibration. Solid-state drives are said to

withstand 1,000g acceleration (if you are not an astronaut you can ignore this bit of information!).

Big companies enter the game

As expected, several big companies, including Intel, Crucial and OCZ Vertex, entered into the race for

developing affordable and rugged SSDs. (Small companies do not count; it is a big-buck industry.)

Samsung, the electronics giant, is also one of the biggies that developed SSDs. Though Samsung is

known other products such as laptop computers and TV screens most consumers probably did not even

know about its SSDs because their prices were beyond the budget of most users.

However, like any other newly developed product the prices of SSDs also started falling (good for the

consumers!) In 2011 Samsung launched its 830 series SSD drives. Currently, the available top capacity of

the drives is 512GB. A Samsung 256GB SSD (which I am writing about) contains 16 16Gb flash memory

that is estimated to be equivalent to 300,000 Microsoft Word documents, 9,000 photos with reasonable

resolution, 1,000 MP3 music files or a dozen of standard-length movies. Imagine what you can store in a

512GB drive.

Nitty-gritty stuff

The SSDs can be used either internally (substituting the mechanical hard drives) or externally (for backup

and data storage). The form factor of 2.5” x 7mm makes it is easy to insert a drive into the bowels of a

laptop. The brushed metal casing makes it both attractive and rugged. The drive can be electrically

connected to a laptop through a USB port on the computer side and SATA connector on the disk side.

Their compatibility with operating systems ranges from Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Vista, XP, MAC

OSX and Linux. They are very light, weighing only 0.14lbs or 63.5g.

A SSD drive consumes only about 0.12watt of power (at 5v + 1%) in the active mode that is considerably

less than what is needed to power a mechanical HDD. When the machine idles the power consumed by

the SSD goes down to 0.08watt. This becomes crucially important when the SSD substitutes the HDD in a

laptop. The charge in the battery can then keep powering a machine (and the SSD) for some 30 extra

29

minutes. Samsung claims that with an internal SSD a machine can be booted in 15 seconds (I have not

tested it).

I found the installation to be easy. Since I wanted to use one Samsung 256GB as external drive for my

Windows 7-based machine, I clicked on the Start button and then typed “diskmgmt” in the search

window and hit enter. From there on it was easy to follow the prompts and the drive was ready for use

in about 5 minutes. I could even assign a specific letter to the drive.

Some SSDs come with built-in controller and

the Samsung drive is one of them. Since it is

developed in-house, there is close

compatibility between the SDD and the

controller that makes the drive really fast.

The package comes with a CD-ROM with

Samsung’s Magician software that can be

used to optimize the disk operation and also

for benchmarking purposes. For backup the

use of Norton Ghost is suggested. Since I

already paid for and run Norton 360, I did

not install Ghost. I already had System

Mechanic that I reviewed in the January issue. That software too has a proactive tool designated as SSD

accelerator. It “uses the patented ActiveCare technology in order to ensure that all data storage drives

are automatically optimized for maximum performance and longevity on a regular basis.”

I do not know if the two optimizing software can coexist in my machine without causing havoc. I must

find out and that will be the subject of another article.

Even without elaborate measuring equipment I can perceive that the read and write operations are very

fast. The vendor’s benchmark claims up to 80,000 IOPS (i.e., input/output operations per second) for

random read speeds. Sequential read and write speeds are also claimed to be 520MB/s and 400MB/s

respectively. That makes the Samsung SSD a good device for a wide range of computing needs such as

browsing Web sites, creation of documents, editing multimedia files or using it for gaming for which

very fast operation is essential.

The figures compiled by Samsung from independent sources (that we cannot quote verbatim because of

copyright violations) show that a reboot of a computer with internal SSD takes only 37 seconds

compared with 2 minutes with Samsung’s own HDD, i.e., the operation with SSD is 224% faster to

reboot. Such a SSD-equipped computer takes 35seconds to load Microsoft Excel with two 32MB files.

Compare this with 1min5sec in a HDD computer.

30

Being an electrical engineer I am always interested to know the statistically estimated mean time

between failures (MTBF) of any gadget I buy. Samsung assures me that the MTBF of its SSDs is at least

1.5 million hours.

Samsung admits that the product has not been formally tested as to what might happen when a SSD-

equipped computer passes through airport x-ray security machine. The company states that anecdotal

reports indicate that there is no adverse effect.

My past life as a student of nuclear physics and makes the issue of cosmic radiation bombarding a SSD in

a commercial flight at 35,000 feet swirl in my head. I raised the question with Samsung. The answer I

got: “The probability of significant radiation damage is relatively low for most SSD users during the brief

duration of commercial flights, and any resulting errors should be easily handled by the drive

controller’s error correction circuitry.”

I have been using the SSD as an external data storage device. However, I wanted to make sure that I was

doing everything right. I called the technical support at Samsung. Contrary to most vendors’ customer

service, I did not have to wait much long for a Samsung agent who was knowledgeable and courteous.

What a relief! The technician patiently explained the operation of the SSD and its software. As a result, I

feel more confident while I use the SSD.

$$$$

Aha, now the price! The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $479.99. However, the product is

available for $369.99 from Amazon.com and others retailers. Even we consider the latter figure the price

per GB of storage comes to $1.44. Admittedly, this is 50% higher than what you would pay for a USB

flash drive and many times higher than a mechanical hard drive. But the SSD offers the convenience of

storing a big volume of data at one place that is accessible at a very fast rate. Furthermore, it can be

used internally in place of a mechanical HDD.

This is not, by any means, an endorsement of the Samsung SSD. It is rather a story of my personal DIY

experience in the expectation that it might help you in your work. I am not into computer gaming but

still I do pretty heavy computing, animation, video editing and so on. Fast I/O is essential in these tasks.

But for your work only you can judge if the SSD, used either internally or externally, will increase your

productivity and/or give you a piece of mind. The benefits will be different for different users. After all, it

is not a cupcake you will acquire and As far as I am concerned I will replace the HDD in my Toshiba as

soon as I feel more comfortable with my DIY skills and my next machine will be SSD-powered from the

beginning.

Disclaimer: The above product review is completely independent from the vendor (Samsung). The

reviewer is not an employee of the vendor company. He has no explicit or implicit financial interest in

the company.

31

Tidbits and Newsworthy

Amitava Dutta-Roy

ith the proliferation of the facilities with which we obtain information, we purchase

products online, we do our banking and many other useful personal chores the number of

criminals has also increased beyond our wildest imagination. They lurk at every possible

turn of the Internet maze. They try to break into your accounts by guessing your passwords if they have

not read them already by implanting spyware in your computer. One step (though not the only one) to

deter them would be o choose your passwords so carefully that it would be most difficult to guess them.

For example, mixing uppercase and lowercase letters or adding numbers to letters etc. If you want a

guide to make your passwords stronger visit: http://www.grc.com/haystack.htm

_______________

Bill Gates interviewed by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times

You may be interested in the world views of the Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates you would get a very

good idea from an interview when the veteran journalist Thom Friedman asks the billionaire. Thomas

Friedman is the author of The World is Flat, A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (Picador,

paperback edition, July 2007, 660 pp., ISBN : 978-0312425074). The entire interview(February 7, 2012) is

available on YouTube: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2012/03/01/opinion/100000001394405/on-

technocratic-logic.html?hp.

_______________

Women entrepreneurs in the news

Women Innovate Mobile (WIM) Names First Four Companies for Accelerator Program

Tech Incubator for Women Selects First Graduating Class of Female-Founded Companies

NEW YORK, March 5, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Over the last 45 days, applications have been pouring

in from across the US and around the world for a chance to be invited to Women Innovate Mobile's

(WIM) first Accelerator Class. Over this six-week period, WIM received applications from startups in 30

states as well as from entrepreneurs in Hong Kong, India, South Africa, Israel, Italy, Spain, Germany,

France, U.K., and

Canada. Today, WIM is pleased to announce it has selected Twain, Whatdayathink, Loudly, and

Appguppy as finalists to participate in its first Accelerator Class.

About the Selection Process

W

32

After reviewing hundreds of emails and applications, WIM selected 23 startups to its shortlist, and then

conducted in-person interviews with 11 finalists. "It was an amazing experience to receive so much

interest from female-founded mobile start-ups from across the country and around the world," said

Kelly Hoey, WIM's Managing Director. "While the entrepreneurs applying to participate in WIM were

heavily concentrated in New York, the visualization of the applicants and our networks demonstrates

the vast and diverse connections of women, men, companies and organizations invested in the success

of our venture. It's clear from this that WIM has a very different look and feel from other accelerator

programs."

About the WIM Accelerator Program

WIM is a three-month mentorship driven accelerator program that starts on March 26 in New York City and runs until June 29. The selected companies get $18,000 in seed funding, free office space, product development and design support, mobile-marketing promotions, and personalized instruction and guidance from a vast network of mentors, funders and advisors. At the conclusion of the program, the organization will host WIM Demo Day with investors, advisors and mentors in June 2012. The upcoming

WIM Accelerator Program schedule includes:

-- March 26 - WIM Accelerator start date

-- Mid-June - Pitch/Demo Day

-- June 29 - WIM Accelerator end date

About the Winners

Twain

-- Founders: Roshan Hall and Miao Yun Kuang

-- Twain delivers "learn to read" interactive storybook apps designed to help parents teach reading

skills to their children

Whatdayathink

-- Founders: Emily Dimytosh and Harry Brundage

-- Whatdayathink delivers multi-location retailers/hospitality real-time guest feedback so they can

improve guest experiences

Loudly

-- Founders: Sophia Chou and Foy Savas

-- Stop hiding your phone number, control how people call and text you with Loudly.

33

Appguppy

-- Founders: Ashwini Nadkarni, Raj Dandage, Anagha Nadkarni

-- Appguppy is a site that lets users create and distribute a cross-platform mobile app in 5 simple steps,

and less than 5 minutes

How to apply for WIM

Due to the extraordinary interest in WIM's first Accelerator Class, WIM

is changing over to a rolling submission process. Visit

http://www.womeninnovatemobile.com for the latest information on upcoming class dates and

events.

About Women Innovate Mobile

Women Innovate Mobile (WIM) is the first startup accelerator and mentorship-driven program designed

for women-founded companies in mobile technology. WIM's goal is to provide women entrepreneurs

with the guidance, feedback and connections needed to make their startups best in class companies and

formidable business concerns. For more information, visit http://www.womeninnovatemobile.com

Contact:Jennifer SchenbergPenVine for Women in Wireless917-445-4454<jennifer@penvine.com>

This information was brought to you by Cision http://www.cisionwire.com

This is the end of the March 2012 edition of the Monitor

Hope you enjoyed reading it

Please visit us again to re-read this edition or the April edition

We are always striving to improve our standards

We would welcome your criticisms and suggestions

Please send them to the current editor, thank you!