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Dr. Mau-Chung Frank Chang, IEEE Life Fellow, and IEEE-HKN Eminent Member, and his wife Shelly decided this past year to donate to the IEEE Foundation in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary, honoring their beloved history with IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN). Their gift was designated to create the IEEE-HKN M & L Chang Family Fund, which will provide long-term support to enable IEEE-HKN activities and programs to thrive in Asia-Pacific. Their generosity will make a lasting impact that encourages future generations from the region to discover the possibilities that can be found by being part of IEEE-HKN.

Dr. Chang is the Wintek Chair in Electrical Engineering and a distinguished professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Throughout his career, his research has focused on developing high-speed semiconductor devices and integrated circuits for radio, radar, imager, spectrometer, and interconnect System-on-Chip applications. He found his passion for investigating semiconductor devices and circuits while studying physics as an undergraduate at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Taiwan.

“I enjoyed applying what I learned to create sensors and radios,” recalls Dr. Chang. “Because of that, I decided to pursue my advanced studies in electrical and computer engineering.”

(left to right) Shelly and Frank Chang with fellow HKN Eminent Member Ming Hseih

He would go on to earn his MS in Material Science and Engineering from National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan, before completing his PhD in Electrical Engineering at National Chiao Tung University in Taipei and Hsinchu, Taiwan.

From 1983 to 1997, he was the assistant director and department manager of the High-Speed Electronics Laboratory at the Rockwell International Science Center (now Teledyne Scientific & Imaging). He joined UCLA in 1997, where he first became involved with IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN). While serving as the electrical engineering department chair, he was deeply impressed by students and faculty who selflessly devoted their time to nurture engineering leadership and community.

“IEEE-HKN has been one of the most effective organizations with emphasis on nurturing engineering students’ readiness and competency in pursuing the advancing future engineering society,” states Dr. Chang. “The engineering landscape has greatly expanded due to fast development in all fronts of sensing, imaging, communications, and AI related computations. This demonstrates how important it is that we continue to nurture and educate our next generation of pioneers and leaders globally.”

Dr. Chang has pioneered System-on-Chip development for both high-speed and high-frequency system applications. He invented the multiband, reconfigurable RF-Interconnects for both inter-CPU cores and inter-CPU/Memory communications. He and his students were the 1st to demonstrate CMOS active and passive imagers at 100-180GHz. His Lab also pioneered the development of self-healing 57-64GHz radio-on-a-chip (DARPA’s HEALICS program) with embedded sensors, actuators, and self-diagnosis/curing capabilities. He also invented the Digitally Controlled Artificial Dielectric (DiCAD) embedded in CMOS technologies to vary transmission-line permittivity in real-time (up to 20X in practice) for realizing reconfigurable multiband/mode radios in (sub)-mm-Wave frequency bands.

His UCLA Lab also realized the first CMOS Frequency Synthesizer for Terahertz operation (PLL at 560GHz) and devised the first tri-color CMOS active imager at 180-500GHz based on a Time-Encoded Digital Regenerative Receiver and the first 3-dimensional SAR imaging radar with sub-centimeter range resolution at 144GHz. More recently, his Lab has devised a Reconfigurable Convolution Neuron Network (RCNN) Accelerator for AIoT applications, spun off an Edge-AI startup company, Kneron, in San Diego, and won the 2021 IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems Darlington Best Paper Award.
Dr. Chang was also recognized with the IEEE/RSE James Clerk Maxwell Medal (2023) for his seminal contributions to the heterojunction technology and realizations of (sub)-mm-Wave System-on-Chip with unprecedented bandwidth and reconfigurability. Additionally, he received the 2018 HKN Karapetoff Outstanding Technical Achievement Award.

Throughout his work, Dr. Chang has been a champion of cross-disciplinary collaboration because he believes that to prevail in an ever-increasingly complex and competitive future, “the next generation of pioneers must learn how to work together harmoniously and effectively.” He believes IEEE-HKN is an organization that can help foster this teamwork and contributes to the IEEE Foundation to support this ongoing initiative.

“As an UCLA ECE Department chair, I observed that HKN members of UCLA Chapter devote their time selflessly to help other students in preparing for exams when they themselves are also busy in taking the same exams,” explains Dr. Chang.

Dr. Chang and his wife hope others will support IEEE-HKN. Learn more about how to join them in financially supporting the work of IEEE-HKN by visiting the Support IEEE-HKN webpage.