News Release

invent@UCSD Features Electrical Engineering Professor Ian Galton

San Diego, CA, September 14, 2009 -- Electrical engineering professor Ian Galton is the featured innovator in the September 2009 issue of “invent@UCSD”—the newsletter of the UC San Diego Technology Transfer Office. Galton leads the Integrated Signal Processing Group within the Jacobs School’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The story is below. To subscribe to this monthly newsletter from UC San Diego’s Technology Transfer Office, go to: http://email.e-mailnetworks.net/public/Pl00/Fce/subscribe

Ian Galton, Ph.D., juggles stress bulbs from the MaXentric exhibit at UC San Diego’s Salute to Innovations in May 2009.

Professor Ian Galton holds several world records for high-speed/high-accuracy analog-to-digital converters and is inventor on several U.S. patents in this technology area. Students in Galton’s department within the Jacobs School of Engineering—Electrical and Computer Engineering—voted him “best teacher” in 2006. In addition, Galton has several inventions disclosed to the Technology Transfer Office at UC San Diego and works with David Gibbons, assistant director, to commercialize these new technologies. This long-term collaboration has resulted in license agreements for Galton’s analog-to-digital converter innovations. Working with Galton, Gibbons is impressed with the inventor: “a no-nonsense researcher who knows his stuff and doesn’t waste time.”

Galton’s work has impressed San Diego entrepreneurs as well. Two start-up companies formed during the last decade using Galton’s technology. More recently, Dr. Bernard Xavier, one of the founders of Quorum Systems, Inc. (acquired by Spreadtrum Communications, SPRD) and Innocomm Wireless (acquired by National Semiconductor, NSM), began laying the foundation for a new start-up. Xavier partnered with Dr. Andrea Panigada, then a Jacobs School of Engineering Ph.D. student, to license Galton’s newest converter technology and formed Linear Silicon Solutions, Inc. Galton will serve as a scientific advisor for the new company.

Linear Silicon Solutions isn’t Xavier’s and Galton’s first common endeavor. The two met in 1996 at Pacific Communication Sciences, Inc., where Galton was consulting while on leave from the University of California. Two years later, Xavier invited Galton to join his newly formed board of directors at Innocomm Wireless.

Professor Ian Galton, Dr. Andrea Panigada (of Linear Silicon Solutions and a recent electrical engineering Ph.D. from the Jacobs School of Engineering) and Fred Raab (l-r).

Galton and Panigada have been working closely for several years as well. Galton has served as Panigada’s Ph.D. advisor since 2005 and the two have conducted joint research since 2003. Galton and Panigada were honored with an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) best paper award in 2008 for their paper on Digital Background Correction of Harmonic Distortion in Pipelined ADCs. According to Galton, this paper was pivotal in outlining the technology licensed by new start-up, Linear Silicon Solutions.

In talking about his academic research ventures, Galton states, “my group’s objective is to develop enabling technology for highly integrated, low-cost, communication systems. A major challenge is to overcome analog performance limitations that have been imposed by processes optimized for today’s digital circuitry.”

Galton has been teaching and conducting research at UC San Diego since 1996, initially as an associate professor and later a professor of electrical engineering. He also leads UC San Diego’s Integrated Signal Processing Group. Prior to UC San Diego, Galton worked at UC Irvine as an assistant professor of electrical engineering.

In addition to his academic research, Galton regularly consults at several semiconductor companies and teaches industry-oriented short courses on the design of mixed-signal integrated circuits, as well as serving on corporate Boards of Directors and corporate Technical Advisory Boards. He is also active in various capacities with IEEE, including past Editor-in-Chief of Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Analog and Digital Signal Processing; member of the Solid-State Circuits Society Administrative Committee; member of the Circuits and Systems Society Board of Governors; and member of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference Technical Program Committee. Galton received his Sc.B. degree from Brown University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology.

 

Media Contacts

---

Daniel Kane
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-534-3262
dbkane@ucsd.edu