Our work is published in the top journals and conferences. We are also recognized by many companies who use the products of our research, which includes our ideas, software, as well as our graduates. In the areas of computers and electronics, the world moves very quickly, so many of our results are used almost immediately by industry to advance their own research and development.
A good example are the CAD tools used for chip design. A salesperson once showed one of our professors a statement that said the software we got was worth $16 million dollars!
An important benefit of being at a large institution is the fact that there are a lot people around. One important aspect of doing research is to be able to discuss your ideas with other knowledgeable people and to have people around who might be able to answer questions or point you in good directions. This is the case with a large faculty. Here our Computer Engineering and Electronics group profs do cover the major research areas in those disciplines and if you happen to need to talk to someone from another area, such as Communications or Photonics, they can most likely give you what you need. There will also be many graduate students that can challenge your ideas and help you.
With a large critical mass, there will be opportunities to do some cross-disciplinary work such as using our chip design expertise to help the Communications group people implement a new ATM switch architecture as a chip.
Here's an example of having fun while we work! We have the best and largest group that does work with field-programmable gate arrays. Our group is recognized world-wide. In the summer of 1997, we held a workshop that was attended by people from about 10 companies. There were a lot of interesting presentations, discussions, and other activities.