The agenda for this seminar is to provide the attendees with an overview of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). By their nature, FPGAs can address many applications so we will look to build a strong foundation for future FPGA discussions. This foundation will include a high level overview of FPGAs as well as design flow and design methodologies. Additional topics to be discussed include embedded systems, DSP, and power.

Speaker:

The Presenter will be Brian Hoey. Brian is a Senior Field Applications Engineer (FAE) with Altera Corporation. As a FAE, Brian manages the technical engagement between Altera and some of their top customers within his geography. This engagement encompasses the whole design flow from consulting on system architecture to device selection and design implementation to prototype and production support. Brian has been with Altera for 7 years and has worked with companies in the military, test, computer, wireline and wireless communications markets. Prior to joining Altera, Brian was a design engineer with Northrop Grumman.

After the course, a CEU certificate can be obtained by each participant directly from IEEE Headquarters for $15.

Course applicants should register by sending an email to Boris Gramatikov (bgramat@jhmi.edu). The email should contain the following information:

Name and IEEE member number

Email address

Affiliation

IEEE membership (Y/N and Chapter, if any)

Age (optional)

Is the applicant applying for CEU certificate? (Y/N)

2. Communications Society Meeting

The next COMSOC meeting for Baltimore will be on Monday, March 17th at 6:00 PM at the Historical Electronics Museum in Linthicum. Food will be available at 5:30PM.

Directions can be found at our web site:

http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/baltimore/Chapter/Comm/

Title:

WiMax in March 2008

WiMAX is a ‘disruptive’ leading edge technology that is being deployed today; every laptop and desktop computer that uses Intel chips will be WiMAX capable after 1H2008. As a result, WiMAX could have as much impact on the telecommunications infrastructure of the world as did cellular in the 1980s. Currently, many deployments are planned in Europe, China (including Hong Kong), and the Rest of the World (ROW).

This presentation will describe the current status of WiMAX status as of March 2008 and briefly discusses potential issues.

Speaker:

Jim L. Elliott, CISSP, CDP, ISSPCS

Jim L. Elliott was Senior Associate/Technical Manager for Booz, Allen & Hamilton until his retirement in January 2008. He is now working as an independent consultant in the telecommunications industry and expects to continue working in the industry for a few more years. He has extensive professional experience and for the last fifteen plus years has been working in the areas of Wireless Telecommunications, Telecommunications Fraud, Infrastructure Assurance, and Computer Crime Investigation.

Mr. Elliott is a Member of the IEEE, Member of the WiMAX Forum, Member of the Board of Directors of Communications Fraud Control (CFCA); a partner in Elliott Security Group LLC, a technical advisor to the HUB Zone/8A firm LCSJ Communications; Member of the New York, Los Angeles and Washington Electronic Crimes Task Force; and was a Guest Instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC).

For the last eight years, Mr. Elliott and his teams have investigated the security, vulnerabilities and inter-operability issues with wireless (e.g., 802.11/WiFi, 802.16/WiMAX/WiBRO), cellular (i.e., GSM, GPRS, 3G and 4G) and Internet Protocol (IP) based communications networks. The group also does penetration testing of various other fixed wire-line and Internet protocol (IP) telecommunications networks. He is also versed in the Lawful Legal Interception (LLI) products for various telecommunications systems.

Jim has presented seminars and training to international law enforcement, international telecommunications carriers and military personnel in on-line investigative techniques, diagnosis and responses to telecommunications fraud and network threats in many countries. He is a recognized world-class expert in the area of wireless telecommunications systems, the associated fraud and "Threat to Public Networks."

He holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in Engineering and Computer Science from Oregon State and Oklahoma State Universities. He also has credentials as a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Data Processor (CDP), and holds the International Systems Security Professional Certification (ISSPCS).

3. Signal Processing Society Meeting

We have a tentative meeting planned for Thursday March 20 at 6:00 PM at the Historical Electronics Museum. I am still waiting for the information from the speaker. Consult our website for updates on this meeting. The website is located at:

http://www.ieee.org/baltimore/sp

I will update the website when I receive more information.

4. Robot Challenge - Judges Needed

The Robot Challenge will be held this year on Saturday morning, April 12, and Sunday afternoon, April 13, at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, at 1415 Key Highway, near the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

We hope many members who have volunteered in previous years will come again, but we'll still have a need for a few new people. Whether you have been a judge in the past, or would like to get involved for the first time, please e-mail Neville Jacobs if you would be willing to give a few hours working with our high school students - they really learn a lot from their interaction with "real" engineers.

Drop Neville a line if you think you might be available, on one or both dates, and whether you have any preferences for the activities needed. Choices can be Any, Track Judge, Oral Presentation Judge, Administration, Repairs, or Photographer. We're looking for 70 people.

Contact Neville with any questions, and if you haven't previously done so in the past 2 months, please, (new volunteer or veteran) complete the brief form below and e-mail it back.

Re: IEEE Robot Challenge 2008 JUDGES

Name:

Have you previously been a Judge, or involved in any other capacity: Yes/No

Available Saturday 4/12 Yes/No Sunday 4/13 Yes/No

Preferences:

Contact:

Neville Jacobs, (e-m) Nevilleed@aol.com or (phone) 410-653-4176

5. IEEE-USA PACE

PACE (Professional Activities Committees for Engineers) is a grassroots network of IEEE volunteers and committees organized at the section and chapter level in the United States with support from their respective regions and IEEE-USA. For more information, go to the following link:

http://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/pace/default.asp

Here is the 2008 PACE Network Calendar:

1 March 2008:

IEEE-USA PACE Committee meeting in Washington, DC

4 - 5 March 2008:

Congressional Visits Day in Washington, DC

7 - 8 April 2008:

Career Fly-in (Congressional Visits) in Washington, DC

25 - 27 April 2008:

IEEE-USA Annual Meeting (formerly known as the IEEE-USA Leadership Workshop) in Indianapolis, IN

31 July 2008:

Deadline to submit nominations for IEEE-USA Awards

19 - 22 September 2008:

Sections Congress in Quebec City, Canada

6. Notes from the Desk of the Section Chair

The following is a note from Bill Semancik, Chapter Chair for the IEEE Baltimore Section.

“I attended my first meeting of the IEEE Systems Council. It took place concurrently with the IEEE President's Summit in Louisville, KY. Fifteen technical societies are members of the Systems Council including Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Circuits and Systems, Communications, Computational Intelligence, Computer, Control Systems Society, Engineering Management, Instrumentation and Measurement, Microwave Theory and Techniques, Oceanic Engineering, Power Electronics, Product Safety Engineering, Reliability, Robotics and Automation, and Systems, Man and Cybernetics. Education Society was also present though the web site does not list it as a member. The Systems Council wants to contribute to the solutions of very large problems that have global importance. Among the topics that are discussed are such things as infrastructure and Earth sensing. The desire is to have the council be more of a problem solver than many of the other activities of IEEE. I would like a reading from the membership on a piece of the discussion that I found somewhat disconcerting. The message that was being sent was that IEEE members and companies would volunteer their time to solve problems such as better water sources for the 3rd world countries and at the same time that companies would be able to profit from taking part. I took exception to that model. The engineering profession as a whole is generous with volunteering it services. I said that I doubted that IEEE members would flock to volunteer their pro bono services if companies would later profit from their free labor. Does that view reflect our membership? If you have a strong view, please write me and I will use the information during the next Council meeting. I will try to acknowledge submissions unless I get totally inundated.

I have an opportunity to help draft written testimony to the MD State Legislature on the Computer Services Tax. Any written testimony must be provided by 7 March. If anyone has impacts - for instance plans to move a business to neighboring states in reaction to this tax, I can leverage that information in the writing of the testimony.

Bill Semancik

Chair, Baltimore Section”

7. Update on the Teacher In-Service Program (TISP)

The scheduled session with Meade Middle School was postponed to the first week in March due to inclement weather. If we get the same turnout that planned to attend the original session, we will reach a cross section of Anne Arundel County educators from elementary schools through high school. Baltimore Section will also be attending in March a conference organized by Howard County School System to discuss how Government, local businesses and other organizations can help place the county at the forefront of STEM education.

8. Request for Volunteers Interested in Leading Technical Chapters

There is interest being shown in the Computer Society Chapter and we hope to have a new chairperson in the next couple of months. We are still looking for someone to be chair of Aerospace and Electronic Systems. AES has other officers who are willing to help but we need someone to take a lead. If anyone is interested please contact Section Chair Bill Semancik, wsemancik@ieee.org.

9. Financial Engineering: a Growing Career Path for Technical Professionals

The following is a paid advertisement by T. Rowe Price, a leading global investment management firm.

It might surprise you to hear that the financial industry is now one of the hottest destinations for sharp-minded engineers. And for good reason, says Richard T. Whitney, head of Quantitative Equities at Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price, a leading global investment management firm.

“The financial industry has matured to a point where sophisticated and innovative models are now a big part of decision-making,” explains Whitney. This is prompting many financial firms to reach out to engineers and others with technical backgrounds to apply their expertise to the world of investing.

See the following website for more information:

http://www.troweprice.com/financialengineering

10. IEEE-USA Seminar Cancelled

The IEEE-USA Seminar on Career Survival for Engineers and Scientists in the 21st Century on Saturday, March 15, 2008 has been cancelled.

11. Baltimore Region Conferences

The following conferences are planned for Maryland, Washington, DC, and Northern Virginia. This list can be used for planning purposes and also represents potential volunteering opportunities.

2008 IASTED International Conference on Antennas, Radar and Wave Propagation (ARP)

16 Apr - 18 Apr 2008

Best Western Conference Centre

Baltimore, MD, USA

http://www.iasted.org/conferences/home-616.html

2008 Integrated Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Conference (ICNS)

05 May - 07 May 2008

Bethesda Maryland USA

http://spacecom.grc.nasa.gov/icnsconf/index.shtml

2008 IEEE 23rd Annual Conference on Computational Complexity (CCC)

22 Jun - 26 Jun 2008

University of Maryland

College Park, MD, USA

http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/jrogers/complexity/

2008 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering

(CASE 2008)

23 Aug - 26 Aug 2008

Marriott Key Bridge

Arlington, VA, USA

http://www.ieee-case.org

2008 IEEE International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis & Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS)

07 Sep - 10 Sep 2008

Tremont Suite Hotels

Baltimore, MD

12. Continuing EE Education

We are re-running this request for interest in a continuing education program. This program will be in the format of seminars focused on a particular topic of interest. The seminars may run either during the week after work hours or possibly on Saturday. The idea for the program is described below.

Name of project: Continuing EE Education (“CEEE”)

Goal: A section-level program aimed at:

Updating the IEEE members on new developments in the EE field.

Familiarizing engineers with basic new tools, products and techniques as well as giving them the initial knowledge and skills to use them.

Inviting representatives from different vendors to present leading novel products.

Giving tutorials in new areas.

Helping IEEE fellow members become more competitive, especially in times of uncertain jobs, off-shoring and salary stagnation.

Facilitating networking.

Broadening the horizon of each IEEE member.

Fostering collaboration between members of different societies as well as generation of new ideas (“cross-pollination” element).

The program should be open to all IEEE members, including students. It is meant to be a cross-societies initiative, i.e. should not be limited to narrow topics serving the interests of a single chapter only. Emphasis should be placed on meeting with experienced experts from different fields. Critical comparisons between different solutions of EE problems are expected to be made, and trends should be discussed.

Potential topics of interest could include, but are not limited to:

Software tools:

Programming languages

Compilers

Real-Time Operating systems

Debuggers

Emulators

Hardware tools:

Novel electronic components

Single-Board Computers (SBC)

Embedded solutions

FPGAs

Printed circuit board design (schematics capture, layout)

Circuit simulation (PSPICE)

Portable devices

Signal and image processing (examples, tools, help)

Wireless devices:

Theory

Standards

Available OEM products

Trends

Internet-based methods and devices:

Standards

Available tools

Web Page Design

Contemporary design tools (like AutoCad and Solid Works)

Reliability and Compliance issues

We plan to invite qualified speakers from academia, industry and governmental institutions. The speakers will be professionals who can give first-hand information and share front-line experience on the technology, methods and tools being presented.

We plan to organize 2-4 meetings annually. Each meeting is planned to last for 2 hours or more. We could meet on weekdays, or on Saturdays.

Please send us your suggestions and preferences regarding topics, time and place of meetings, the name/acronym of the program etc.

Boris Gramatikov

Baltimore Section

Bgramat@jhmi.edu