Thomas H. Lee is a professor at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. Lee's research focus has been on gigahertz-speed wireline and wireless

integrated circuit An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...

s built in conventional silicon technologies, particularly

CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary an ...

;

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than other radio waves but longer than infrared waves. Its wavelength ranges from about one meter to one millimeter, corresponding to frequency, frequencies between 300&n ...

; and

RF circuit Radio-frequency (RF) engineering is a subset of electrical engineering involving the application of transmission line, waveguide, antenna, radar, and electromagnetic field principles to the design and application of devices that produce or ...

s.
Things about Stuff
is a popular freshman course, taught by Lee. This course tells stories behind the greatest inventions, including the telephone, the television and the transistor. He has written and co-authored several books and papers, and in 2012, concluded a tour of duty as the director of

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adva ...

's Microsystems Technology Office.

Early life and education

Lee received his S.B. (1983), S.M. (1985) and Sc.D. (1990) degrees in electrical engineering, from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. He was also awarded an Honoris Causa doctorate from the University of Waterloo in 2012 in recognition of his contributions to wireless technology.

Career

Lee joined Analog Devices in 1990 where he was primarily involved in the design of high-speed clock recovery devices. In 1992, he joined Rambus Inc. where he developed high-speed analog circuitry for 500 megabyte/s CMOS DRAMs. He has also contributed to the development of PLLs in the StrongARM, Alpha and AMD K6/K7/K8 microprocessors. Lee joined the Department of Electrical Engineering in 1993. In 1994 he founded the ''Stanford Microwave Integrated Circuits Laboratory''. In 1998, Lee cofounded Matrix Semiconductor (acquired by Sandisk in 2006). He founded ZeroG Wireless (acquired by

Microchip Technology Microchip Technology Incorporated is a publicly listed American semiconductor corporation that manufactures microcontroller, mixed-signal, analog, and Flash-IP integrated circuits. Its corporate headquarters is located in Chandler, Arizona. ...

) and is a cofounder of Ayla Networks. Lee was director of

's Microsystems Technology Office from April 2011 to October 2012. Since early 2016, he has served on the Board of Directors of Xilinx. As of 2018, he holds more than 60 U.S. patents.

Awards and memberships

* 2021 IEEE Gustav Robert Kirchhoff Award * 2016-2018 Distinguished Lecturer, Solid-State Circuits Society of the IEEE * 2015 IEEE Fellow for contributions to the design of CMOS radio-frequency integrated circuits. * April 2011 Awarded the

Ho-Am Prize in Engineering The Ho-Am Prize in Engineering was established in 1994 by Kun-Hee Lee, the Chairman of Samsung, to honour the late chairman, Lee Byung-chul, the founder of the company. The Ho-Am Prize in Engineering is one of six prizes awarded annually, covering t ...

, informally known as "the Korean Nobel Prize." * In 2012 he was awarded the U.S. Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service for his work at DARPA, and was awarded an Honoris Causa Doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2013. * A freshman seminar he inaugurated, "Things about Stuff" (EE14N), was recognized by the American Society of Engineering Education as one of several "hot courses" in engineering.

Selected publications

''The design of CMOS radio-frequency integrated circuits''

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 2004,
''The Design and Implementation of Low-Power CMOS Radio Receivers''
co-authored with Derek K. Shaeffer, Springer, 1999,
''The Design of Low Noise Oscillators''
co-authored with

Ali Hajimiri Ali Hajimiri is an academic, entrepreneur, and inventor in various fields of engineering, including electrical engineering and biomedical engineering. He is the Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering at the California In ...

, Springer, 1999,
''Planar Microwave Engineering: A Practical Guide to Theory, Measurement, and Circuits''
Thomas H. Lee,

, 2004, , , 880 pages

External links

Thomas Lee, Stanford University

Stanford Microwave Integrated Circuits Laboratory (SMIrC)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Thomas H. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fellows of the IEEE MIT School of Engineering alumni American electrical engineers Stanford University Department of Electrical Engineering faculty Recipients of the Ho-Am Prize in Engineering