Florida High Tech Corridor
2002-2003 USF “External Matching Grant” Project Awards
20
awards were issued for a total of $1 million in grants, generating
over $2.2 in private sector matching investment from 20 companies.
Bhethanabotla,
Venkat & Bhansali, Shekhar, “Film Deposition and Characterization
of Liquidmetal ™ Alloys for MEMS Applications.”
Grant amount: $50,000. Partner companies: Liquidmetal ™ Technologies.
Layman’s
Abstract: Liquidmetal ™ alloys have excellent properties (2-3
times stronger and harder than titanium, more elastic than any other
metal or alloy known, etc.) and have found many applications in
the bulk form. This project focuses on the development and characterization
of Liquidmetal ™ thin films as low friction interfaces for
active MEMS devices.
Dunleavy,
Lawrence, “High Rate Wireless 5GHz OFDM Impairments.”
Grant amount: $22,575. Partner companies: Intersil & Tektronix.
This
project will represent collaboration with faculty in solving important
issues in wireless communication system hardware development involving
a combination of radio frequency and digital signal processing techniques.
Dunleavy,
Lawrence, “Precision Characterization for Wireless and Millimeter-wave
Design”. Grant amount: $150,000. Partner companies:
Anritsu Company & Raytheon Systems.
The
program will fund six graduate students in the area of enhanced
wireless and microwave/millimeter-wave circuit design and precision
experimental characterization. The Matching Grant will provide enabling
instrumentation capabilities, and including a temperature dependent
and pulsed bias probing systems.
Ferekides,
Chris, “Hgl2-based Photo-detectors for Homeland Security and
Medical Applications.” Grant amount: $74,507. Partner
companies: Constellation Technology.
Thin
films of Hgl2 can be used as photo-detectors in high-energy nuclear
radiation detectors. Hgl2 has the potential of decreasing the cost,
size, and sensitivity of these systems. Applications include Homeland
Security and nuclear medicines.
Garbuzova-Davis,
Svitlana, “Umbilical Cord Blood-Derives Stem Cells to Treat
ALS.” Grant amount: $59,360. Partner companies: Saneron
CCEL Therapeutics, Inc & StemCo Biomedical, Inc.
Amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal degenerative disease affecting
motor neurons in the spinal cord, brainstem, and cortex. The project
will transplant stem-cell-enriched human umbilical cord blood into
a mouse model of ALS. This will determine the effectiveness of these
cells in delaying disease symptoms and increasing lifespan.
Harmon,
Julie, “Development of Novel Underfill Formulations with High
Thermal Conductivity.” Grant amount: $50,000. Partner
companies: Honeywell Inc.
The
project addresses the problem of developing polymeric composites
with high thermal conductivity for use in advanced packaging technologies
for electronics.
Harmon,
Julie, “Lithium Ion Conductivity Mechanism in Polymer Solid
State Electrolyte.” Grant amount: $10,000. Partner
companies: Honeywell Inc.
The
project addresses the issue of analyzing polymer battery formulations
via NMR, thermal analysis and optical spectroscopy.
Jain,
Vijay, “Transforming OWSS Into a 4G Wireless Technique.”
Grant amount: $33,000. Partner companies: Intersil Corporation.
Next
generation wireless technology will facilitate everything from ‘learning
on-demand’ to ‘filling the information tank from an
info station’, and to ‘visiting the day-care center
virtually’ on mobile devices. The goal of this research is
to help develop this exciting, future technology.
Katkoori,
Srinivas, “Requirements Analysis for an Automated Synthesis
Framework for the Honeywell Reconfigurable Space Computer.”
Grant amount: $7,500. Partner companies: Honeywell International Inc.
The
project staff will perform a detailed requirements analysis for
an automated synthesis framework for the Honeywell Reconfigurable
Space Computer.
Killinger,
Dennis, “Laser Enhancement to Endospore Anthrax Sensor.”
Grant amount: $80,000. Partner companies: Ocean Optics, Inc.
The
project will use a laser to enhance sensitivity of spectrometer
based endospore sensor used to detect Anthrax.
Kumar,
Ashok, “Nanoscale Chemical, Tribological and Mechanical Properties
of Surface Engineered/Modified Polymers.” Grant amount:
$85,137. Partner companies: PsiloQuest Inc.
The
main objective of the project is to understand the chemical, mechanical
and tribological properties of plasma treated chemical mechanical
planarization pads for semiconductor manufacturing applications.
This project will include the use of UCF research facilities and
, hopefully, to a joint NSF proposal.
Kumar,
Ashok, “Nanotechnology for Solar Control Film Applications.”
Grant amount: $50,000. Partner companies: Brycoat, Inc.
The
main objective of the project is to fabricate highly homogeneous
nanoparticle-polymer composite coatings for optimal UV absorption
with better mechanical properties (toughness and stiffness) for
window film applications.
Liuzzi,
Francis, “A Tissue Engineered Living Sertoli Cell-Type I Collagen
Bioactive Nerve Guide for Peripheral Nerve Repair.”
Grant amount: $43,250. Partner companies: Saneron CCEL Therapeutics,
Inc.
The
object of the project is to design and fabricate a living Sertoli
cell-type I bioactive nerve guide for the repair of nerve gaps following
traumatic nerve injury. The nerve guide will be developed and tested
using an animal model of nerve repair. The goal is to develop a
nerve guide for clinical use in human nerve repair.
Rahman,
Muhammad, “Thermal Control of Microelectronics in Space.”
Grant amount: $10,000. Partner companies: Honeywell, Inc.
The
project will develop a device for the control of temperature in
microelectronics fielded space vehicles. This will guarantee long
life and high reliability of sensors and processors.
Ranganathan,
Nagarajan, “Dynamic scheduling for fault tolerance and an object
oriented query language for heterogeneous computing system.”
Grant amount: $38,641. Partner companies: Tandel Systems LLC.
The
focus of this project is to design and develop (i) dynamic scheduling
algorithms for fault tolerance and (ii) a framework for object oriented
query language to support a heterogeneous systems.
Schlaf,
Rudy, “Design and Construction of Carbon Nanotube Reactors.”
Grant amount: $28,4000. Partner companies: Applied Nanotechnologies,
Inc.
The
project focuses on the development of a chemical vapor deposition
reactor, and the growth of tailored carbon nanotubes (CNT) in specialized
locations and orientation on wafer sized substrates. This will enable
batch processing of carbon nanotube devices allowing commercialization
of this process.
Weller,
Tom, “Advanced Microwave Technology for Space Applications-MEMS
Switch Architectures.” Grant amount: $25,000. Partner
companies: Raytheon.
Microwave
switching devices that are based upon micro electro-mechanical systems
(MEMS) technology hold great potential for performance –critical
environments such as space. In the special applications of interest,
reliability and off-state isolation are among the most important
switch characteristics. Novel design techniques will be pursued
as part of this work in order to advance the current state of the
art in this area. An additional area of emphasis will be the design
and demonstration of a mm-wave integrated circuit assembly with
requisite redundancy paths.
Weller,
Tom , “High-Efficiency Miniaturized Antennas on Lossy Silicon
Substrate.” Grant Amount: $25,000. Partner companies:
InFlux.
In
this project, electromagnetic design techniques and semi-conductor
process methods, both aimed at advanced antenna development, will
be investigated. The goal is to realize physically small, high performance
antennas that are integrated on silicon substrates of the type utilized
for radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs). Direct integration
of the antenna with the RFIC is a critical milestone for current
single chip radio” technology.
