Dean's message
California DREAMS and DELIVERS
December 2023
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On June 30, 2024 I will retire from the University of California and step down as Dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. But hey, I’m not diving for the door! I’m going to be around as Dean for the next seven months; and I intend to use that time as profitably as I can for the Jacobs School.
And in this spirit, I am proud to share the column below which describes collaborative work that is critically important to the region, the state and the nation. But before I do, please allow me one quick interlude. I came to UC San Diego in 2013 with an ambitious set of goals for advancing engineering and computer science for the public good through education, research and transfer of innovation to society. Working alongside so many of you both inside and outside the Jacobs School, we have achieved these goals with greater success than I would ever have imagined. And accordingly, I feel that now is an excellent time for me to move on to new ventures.
Now, let’s get to it.
California DREAMS and DELIVERS
The UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering is a key member of a new microelectronics superhub called California DREAMS. I can tell you that we are working hard to make sure that the final outcome of California DREAMS is “California DELIVERS!”
I’m talking, of course, about the U.S. DoD funded Microelectronics Commons project which is led by USC. It is funded at $27 million in just its first year. California DREAMS stands for the California Defense Ready Electronics and Microdevices Superhub. It is a coalition of research and industry organizations working together to accelerate the development and manufacturing of microelectronics in the United States. The collaborative work involves streamlining the transition of advanced semiconductor research in university laboratories to DoD-scale industrial fabrication facilities and then hopefully into the U.S. semiconductor industry.
California DREAMS will concentrate its efforts in 5G/6G technologies and on the broader effort to establish advanced communications networks, focusing mainly on hardware. Heterogeneous integration is critical for this work. The whole point of heterogeneous integration is to drive down the cost, size, weight, and power needs of tomorrow’s high performance microelectronics. The resulting multi-chiplet systems will be customizable and able to incorporate the latest materials and other innovations for applications such as running AI at the edge while using very little power.
I’m particularly excited about the promise of heterogeneous integration for ushering in new generations of microelectronics that will help us make a major pivot in preventive healthcare. Imagine multiple-chip-but-single-module solutions that take live streams of clinical-grade data off the body; manage ultra-low power requirements; and transmit your data to your healthcare provider across secure and private protected networks. Imagine these preventive healthcare solutions as scalable, inexpensive and available to everyone.
The Jacobs School of Engineering – and UC San Diego overall – is one of the very few places with the strengths necessary to realize this vision. It’s not often that you find a university with a great engineering school with fantastic fundamentals; a long and storied past – and present – in wireless and circuit design; worldwide leadership in wearable research and technology development; a deep and broad AI ecosystem spanning the Jacobs School, the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute (HDSI) and beyond; a collaborative and forward-thinking health system that is already creating scalable-systems for integrating safe, secure and private AI into the practice of medicine; and leadership at the intersection of cybersecurity and healthcare.
Take one step back and you see that our San Diego region is packed with the wireless, biomedical, AI, software and analytics ecosystems encompassing both industry, academic research and the private sector that make San Diego a place where this vision of the digital future for human health can truly come together.
In the context of California DREAMS, not only will California DELIVER but so will San Diego and the Jacobs School of Engineering!
Please accept my warmest and most sincere wishes for a safe and healthy holiday season. Thank you for all of your support of the Jacobs School of Engineering, and please stay tuned for much more from me in the first half of 2024!
I can be reached at DeanPisano@ucsd.edu