The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has named Dr Cian Ó Mathúna from Tyndall National Institute in Cork as a fellow as a result of his contribution to the field of power electronics.
Ó Mathúna, who is head of the Microsystems Centre at Tyndall National Institute, has been named as the only IEEE fellow in Ireland in 2013. He joins eight IEEE fellows in Ireland to date. In all, the IEEE has announced 298 fellows for 2013.
Tyndall’s chairman Alastair Glass said Ó Mathúna’s achievement is an important one not only for Tyndall National Institute but also for the Irish scientific and engineering community.
“Cian has led a multi-disciplinary team at Tyndall in undertaking leading research into a major roadblock to realising the power supply on chip concept through the development of high efficiency, small footprint, thin-film, power micro-magnetics on silicon,” said Glass.
He said the term ‘power supply on chip’, also known ‘PwrSoC’, proposed by Ó Mathúna, has now become a globally used term in the semiconductor industry to describe this emerging technology.
According to Tyndall, Ó Mathúna’s research will pave the way for the inclusion of very small, highly efficient power supplies into silicon chips in electronic products.
Potential applications of the technology will include a dramatic reduction in energy usage in electronic products, as well as helping to deliver extended battery life in smartphones and tablets.
Tyndall’s Dr Cian Ó Mathúna, who has been named an IEEE fellow
Prof John Shen, vice-president of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, said Ó Mathúna had also shown leadership by setting up a series of international workshops on PwrSoC recently in San Francisco, California.
Shen said Ó Mathúna had brought the global power electronics and semiconductor communities together to clarify the technical and commercial challenges that need to be addressed in delivering the PwrSoC vision.
“This is now the flagship IEEE conference in this space,” added Shen.
