The first MSE was organized by Don Bouldin in July of 1997, at a time when US government support for the fabrication of ICs from university classes was waning. A grass-roots committee formed at that conference took on the task of finding industrial support for this vital part of the VLSI infrastructure. The effort culminated in the August 2000 announcement by the Semiconductor Industry Association that it would sponsor the MOSIS Educational Program. This generous support has put the US VLSI education infrastructure back on firm footing.
This year, for the first time, MSE is co-located with the Design Automation Conference (DAC), which gives MSE attendees the opportunity of seeing an unparalleled exhibit of design tools, as well as the DAC technical sessions, workshops and tutorials. It is anticipated that MSE might alternate with the DAC Workshop for VLSI Design Educators, which was held last year. We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and support which we have received from DAC.
MSE is maturing, as seen in the quality of contributed papers and the rigor of the review process. I thank the authors of invited contributed papers who are willing to share their knowledge and experiences to improve education at other institutions.
The organizing committee has been the most enthusiastic and willing group of volunteers with whom one could hope to work. I thank Jay Brockman from the University of Notre Dame (Program Chair), Don Bouldin from the University of Tennessee (Publicity), Jim Aylor from the University of Virginia (Treasurer and IEEE Liaison), and John Lockwood, Washington University, St. Louis (Proceedings and Web Chair) for their time and energy. A special note of appreciation is extended to my executive secretary, Catherine M. S. June, who has served so well as the Conference Manager.
We appreciate the sponsorship of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committees on Design Automation, Test Technology and VLSI, and the cooperation of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
It is our sincere hope that each attendee will profit from participation in this meeting, and that this meeting will contribute to the continual improvement of microelectronic systems education throughout the world.
Richard B. Brown
The University of Michigan