The School of Engineering's electronic and computer engineering research received a major boost in June 2012, with the opening of the Xilinx-HKUST Joint Lab. The lab marks the start of significant long-term collaboration between HKUST and global giant Xilinx Inc, the world leader in All Programmable technologies and devices.

The innovative Joint Lab will provide resources to HKUST faculty and students for cross-platform, cross-disciplinary research projects and teaching activities in areas such as embedded systems, signal processing, IC design, network and control. The University will also share core undergraduate courseware through the Xilinx University Program with universities and institutes around the world.

Xilinx Inc donated over HK$2 million to equip the Joint Lab at its launch and in September provided a next-generation field programmable gate array(FPGA)platform with embedded ARM processors.

Prof Joseph Lee, Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies, HKUST, said that the Joint Lab would powerfully add to the advancement of global research and interdisciplinary studies through the combined endeavor of HKUST's international research vision and innovative Xilinx products and technologies.

Dr Ivo Bolsens, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Xilinx, added that the company was honored to work with HKUST and to bring the benefits of Xilinx's All Programmable technologies, devices and design tools to a broad base of electronic engineering professors and undergraduate students.

Others attending the opening ceremony included Prof Khaled Ben Letaief, Dean of Engineering, HKUST; Prof Ross Murch, Head of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, HKUST; Mr Fai Yeung, Vice President of Sales and Marketing in Asia Pacific, Xilinx; Dr Kevin Xie, Greater China Manager of the Xilinx University Program; and Prof Jiang Xu, Founding Director of Xilinx-HKUST Joint Lab.

The ceremony was followed by a talk by Dr Bolsens on "Entering the Era of Crossover System-on-Chips". Nearly 100 professors, staff and students from HKUST and various organizations attended. A two-day training workshop for faculty members, staff, and graduate students from Hong Kong and Mainland China was also held at HKUST.