Evolution
The College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
On August 1, 2000, the College of Electrical Engineering of NTU was renamed the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Since then, the Department of Computer Science and Graduate Institute of Computer Science Department have been transferred from the College of Electrical Engineering to the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. (The Ministry of Education of Taiwan approval Tai(2000) Kao(1) Tzu-Ti89035144, March 27, 2000) The College of Electrical Engineering got the approval and was reformed as the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science on August 1, 1997. (The Ministry of Education of Taiwan approval Tai(1997) Kao(1) Tzu-Ti86034564, April 7, 1997) The College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science brought the original Department of Electrical Engineering and the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering under the College of Electrical Engineering, the Graduate Institute of Electro-Optics Engineering, the telecommunication research center, and the new approved and established Graduate Institute of Telecommunication under its management. On August 1, 2001, the Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering was established; and on August 1, 2004, the Graduate Institute of Information Network and Multimedia was established. Both were approved. According to the statistics, there were 173 part time and full time teachers, 30 teaching assistants, 41 staff, 1217 undergraduate students and 1278 Master students, and 635 PHD students work or study in the two departments and six graduate institutes of the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science by the end of 2004.
The establishment of the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science dates back to the early 1900s. The information and electronics industries in Taiwan were at their peak in the early 1990s, which has replaced the traditional industries, and has became the main economic source in Taiwan. Therefore, the need of professionals with information and electronics knowledge was increasing. Due to this reason, in November 1991, the chairperson of the department, Si-Chen Li, proposed the idea to re-establish the Department of Electrical Engineering to a college. He entrusted Po-Wen Hsu, the vice chairperson with the plan. In April 1992, Professor Hsu submitted the proposal. The proposal was approved in the meeting held by the department affair committee of Electrical Engineering Department. They decided to build one department (the Electrical Engineering Department), four institutes (Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering, Graduate Institute of Electro-Optics, Graduate Institute of Telecommunication, and Graduate Institute of Electronics) and one center (Telecommunication Center) related to the College of Electrical Engineering. Simultaneously, Professor Hsu kept making effort on materializing the proposal. In the same year of June, the College Affair Committee of the Electrical Engineering approved to establish the College of Electrical Engineering through an anonymous vote. This news caused a shock among similar departments and groups of different universities in Taiwan. They started following this program. The establishment of this college is the precursor of the colleges of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science among universities in Taiwan.
In August 1992, Professor Po-Wen Hsu took the position of the chairperson of the Electrical Engineering Department. He continued making effort on establishing the college. After a long and cautious discussion within the school, the program was temporarily halted because the school decided not to establish any units in 1993 and 1995. As a result, it was delayed until the beginning of 1996. It went through an administrative meeting, a teaching affair meeting to the school affair meeting. After the discussions of two school affair meetings (in March and June), they have created the history by passing the proposal of establishing the College of Electrical Engineering through an anonymous vote. In the same year of October, the proposal of establishing the College of Electrical Engineering was reported to the Ministry of Education. In April 1997, the school got the approval from the Ministry of Education to establish the College of Electrical Engineering. In May, Chancellor Wei-Chao Chen, personally recruited and set up a preparation committee for establishing the College of Electrical Engineering. He also appointed Professor Po-Wen Hsu as the executive secretary of this committee. Hence, the program was in process actively. In June, the preparation committee had decided a way of electing and choosing the first dean of the College of Electrical Engineering. The vice chancellor and professor, Cheng-Hung Chen was appointed as the convener of the Electing Committee. Seven people were chosen to be part of the committee. In July, the committee had agreed and reported to the chancellor that they had decided to appoint Professor Po-Wen Hsu to be the first dean of the College of Electrical Engineering.
On August 1, 1997, the College of Electrical Engineering finally established under the expectation and blessing of all teachers, students, and the alumni. At the beginning of the establishment, everything was difficult. There were many things to deal with. Due to the limited space used by the Electrical Engineering Department, the dean’s office and the college office was temporarily put in a less than seven pings of space in Room 113 in Second Building of Electrical Engineering. It was a long and tough way. With the shortage of administrative recourses, such as work force and spaces, Dean Hsu still positive pushed many important and profound influences plans to come true. He had started a new era for the College of Electrical Engineering.
August 1, 1997, College of Electrical Engineering officially established. Professor Po-Wen Hsu was the first dean. Chancellor Wei-Chao Chen was hosting the ceremony.
As developing the college as a whole, Dean Hsu was looking for Computer Science Departments with similar quality to join this college. At the same time, he made sure the direction of the college should focus on developing graduate institutes and becoming one of the most important institutes for electrical engineering researches in the world. Under the effort made by the head of Computer Science Department, Ching-Yi Hsu all teachers, the college affair committee of the College of Engineering and the school affair committee had agreed separately in November 1999 and January 2000 to transfer the Computer Science Department to this college. The Ministry of Education also approved this proposal in March 2000. Therefore, the college officially renamed “ College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science”. In the aspect of developing graduate institutes, Dean Hsu appointed Professor Chen-Kuo Hu to plan and to propose the establishment of the Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering. In March 2000, they got the approval from the Ministry of Education.
In March 2000, the Ministry of Education had agreed on helping establishing the college. After one year of aggressive preparation and planning by the Professor Liang-Chi Chen and the staff of 固態組 and ICS group under the Electrical Engineering Department, the Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering was established in August 2001. Since then, the job of recruiting Master and PHD students of solid state group and ICS group under the Electrical Engineering Department has been transferred to the Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering. At this point, the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has expanded from one department (Electrical Engineering Department), three institutes (Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering, Graduate Institute of Electro-Optics, Graduate Institute of Telecommunication) into two departments (Electrical Engineering Department, Computer Science Department), and five Graduate Institutes (Graduate Institutes of Electrical Engineering, Graduate Institutes of Computer Science, Graduate Institutes of Electro-Optics, Graduate Institutes of Telecommunication, and Graduate Institutes of Electronics). Aside from that, in order to try catching up with the gradual rising development of Bioinformatics, this college had established a functional Bioinformatics Research Center in April 2001 under the approval of the school. Professor Cheng-Yen Kao was appointed as the chief of this center, and he aggressively pushed the biological, medical and information research integration across different colleges and departments.
In the research of teaching, except coordinating with the school policy, the college has started to evaluate teachers since April 1999 (Once a year) and select Teacher of the Year. (Once a year). In May 1999, the college has started to review the teaching research units (once in fo ur or five years). Besides that, a point laboratory and a point research group was founded. Professor Chih-Hung Chen from the Electrical Engineering Department proposed to found a MRI laboratory. After acquiring the subsidy worth of 45,000,000NT for the expensive books, instrument and equipment, it was founded in 1998. Professor Ming-Hsien Chen and Professor Wan-Chun Liao from the Electrical Engineering Department and Professor Ming Ou-Yang from the Computer Science Department tried their best and go the fund of Intel Foundation. (Two hundred thousand US dollars in the first year) Two network and multimedia laboratories were founded separately by the Electrical Engineering Department and the Computer Science Department in April 1999. Under the management of Professor Chun- Hsiung Chen, Professor Ching-Hsiung Wu, and Professor Lin-Shan Li, they received four-year subsidy of two hundred million dollars from the Pursuing Outstanding Academic Plan held by the Ministry of Education in January 2000. Then, a point research group and a program were established (including about 20 teachers) to develop the “Prospective Telecommunication Technology” techniques. In addition, Professor Chung-Kuang Wang persuaded enthusiastically and got the donation of a five-year plan worth of one hundred million dollars from Media Tek Inc. and its president, Ming-Chieh Tsai (a graduated student from Electrical Engineering in 1971). In April 2001, NTU-Media Tek wireless research laboratory was founded and was used to fully develop telecommunication IC designing.
In order to promote the academic level of the college, Dean Hsu planned and set up academic lectures. Under the sponsorship from Eastern Multimedia Co., Ltd., the college was able to set up NTU-Eastern Multimedia Broadband Network lectures. The first academic lecture was held in September 1999. Academia Sinica academician and the director of National Nano Device Laboratories, Ming Shih was invited to give the speech. Dean Wei-Chao Chen honored Academician Shih with the outstanding graduated student of the Electrical Engineering Department award. First NTU-Eastern Multimedia Broadband Network lecture was held in May 2 000. The main speaker is Professor H.T. Kung, an A cademia Sinica academician and the professor of William H. Gates lecture of Harvard University. Two magnificent lectures benefited the teachers and students greatly. At the same period of time, Professor Chih-Chung Yang cautiously planned and in April 2000, the Graduate Institute of Electro-Optics started the electro-optics outstanding lectures hoping to promote the electro-optics academic level of this college.
Leading College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of NTU to be internationalized is always one of Dean Hsu’s expectations and goals. In the early 1998, under Dean Hsu’s supervision, he had made the students to setup IEEE student association NTU branch (directly reports to American IEEE headquarter), and Dean Hsu was the first instructing professor of this student association. Since 1999, he had also aggressively pushed the teachers to become IEEE Fellows. Before the college had founded, there were only three IEEE Fellows (Lin-Shan Li,Chin-Fu Chang, and Chun-Hsiung). After the college has been founded, in 2000, Professor Su-Chang Pei and Professor Cheng-Pang Kuo, in 2001, Professor Szu-Yen Kuo, and Professor Liang-Chi Chen, in 2002, Professor Si-Chen Li, in 2004, Professor Li-Cheng Po, and Professor Ming-Hsien Chen, in 2005, Professor Ching-Hsiung Wu separately got the fellowship from IEEE Fellow. Furthermore ， he emphasized on the cooperation among overseas academic associations. After the college has been founded, he had signed cooperation agreements with Ohio States University, Michigan State University, Lucent Technology Bell Lab, and AT&T Lab separately. Some teachers and students had been invited to AT&T Lab for a year of research. This greatly helped promote the level of research and going internationalization of this college.
Along with the change of the times, academic units no long could separate from the industry. Therefore, how to urge the interaction with domestic computer science industry is Dean Hsu’s another challenge. Aside from the Taiwan Cellular Corp. Enterprise Master’s class founded by the Graduate Institute of Telecommunication, and VIA Technologies Inc. Master’s credit class founded by the Electrical Engineering Department and the Graduate Institute of Electronics, Dean Hsu brought the idea of having the “Career Establishing Lecture”. He hoped the distinguished NTU graduates who have been successful in computer science industry would share their experiences with teachers and students. The first “Career Establishing Lecture” was held in April 1999. Chancellor Wei-Chao Chen gave the Distinguished NTUEE Entrepreneur Award to Min-Hung Hung, the president of TAMACO, Hsing-Cheng Tsao, the president of UMC, and Pai-Li Lin, the president of Quanta Computer lnc. President Lin gave a speech to share his successful career establishing experience. The speech caused an expected sensation within the country. All kinds of media were here to report this speech. It was the first time completely showed the outstanding distribution from the distinguished NTUEE entrepreneurs to Taiwan’s economy. After more than ten “Career Establishing Lectures”, an unpredicted result was that President Pai-Li Lin generally offered to help build a 3,350-ping building for the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In addition, a graduated student, President Sen-Tien Li promised to take over the second period of construction of the Computer Science Building; and Chun-Yuan Tu, the president of Silicon Integrated Systems Corporation, offered a whole tuition scholarship for five students to the PHD classes of the college. (fifty thousand dollars per month, two years in a roll) These have made an extraordinary influence to the development of the college later on.
Too many students and not enough space have always been in the way for developing the college. In order to solve this problem, first, they had moved the College of Engineering Library to the new head library. (November 1998) After that, the construction of rebuild the 360-ping building have completed according to the requirements. (May 2000) At this point, Electrical Engineering Second Building has completely transferred to this college for its usage. In June and September 2004, they have finished the construction of Barry Lam Hall, sponsored by President Pai-Li Lin, and the second period construction of Computer Science Department Building, sponsored by President Sen-Tien Li. At present, the college has been planning to build Electrical Engineering Department Research Building – Ming-Ta Building. (The BenQ Group and AUO Corp will be sponsoring this building. President Kun-Yao Li signed the donation agreement in September 2004.) The construction will start in 2005.
Looking into the future, if the space problem gets to be solved, the planning Graduate Institute of Computer, Biomedical Electronics, Bioinformatics will be able to be founded soon. With the situation of academic level going internationalized and under the policy of having more interaction with the industry, the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science will become an important college among the world colleges within no days.
Electrical Engineering Department
Former Electrical Engineering Department of NTU was “Electronics Engineering Course, Engineering Department of Taihoku Imperial University” during the Japanese occupation. (It was founded in May 1943) After the retrocession, it was reformed as Electrical Engineering Department, College of Engineering of NTU. There were only three professors, Chi-Hsin Tseng, Yao-Nan Yu, Chin-Shun Yang, after it was reformed. （ The second chairman of the department, Professor C hu-Hsien Li, started teaching in the Electrical Engineering Department in 1947. ） The first-year recruit were about 30 students.(August 1946) Half of the students came from Mainland China. The whole department were divided into two groups, Electric Power Group and Electrical Communication Group. Most students chose Electric Power Group, and there left five students in the Electrical Communication Group. Within the next fifty-six years, the fourteen chairmen led the department and worked in a hard way so that the department has its scale today in the 21 st century. By the end of year 2004, there are 102 full time teachers and about 180 students graduate from NTUEE Department every year. Current students including Master students and PHD students are more than 1200 ones. The scale of this department is the largest within the country. Every year, there are large amount of alumni devoted themselves into industry field and academic field. It has made an extraordinary positive influence to our society.
In November 1945, when NTUEE was first reformed, Professor Chi-Hsin Tseng was appointed as the first chairman of the department. It was located at the present Freshman Building. It was a wood made Japanese style building. They had to share this building with Civil Engineering Department. The economic situation was much worse than current situation shortly after the retrocession. The classrooms were old and broken. All equipment was simple and unrefined. There were no laboratories. Common and necessary instrument like oscilloscopes are easy to get nowadays, but not then. Teachers and students went through a hard time. Nonetheless, in August 1947, it was still expanding, and the Graduate Institute was founded. Because of the poor environment and other factors, they did not recruit immediately. The first recruit did not happen until 17 years later. (August 1964)
In 1949, Professor Chu-Hsien Li, who graduated from the University of Tokyo, took over the position of second chairman. In the period when he was the chairman, he had continued pushing the development of the Electrical Engineering Department including completing a one-story wood building and setup the first two laboratories of this department in it. It was the start point for the researches in electrical engineering field in this country.
In 1954, Ching Sheng (Wang Lai) took the position of the third chairman of the NTTEE department. The next year (August 1995), the department expanded to two classes, one for local students and another for foreign students. He also moved most of the NTUEE laboratories after the College of Engineering building completed. (P.S.: The building is the building of Civil Engineering Department now.) There were only tw o groups, Electric Power Group and Electrical Communication Group. The former group destined the mounting of electricity system of the whole island. The latter group used the ionosphere in the space above the earth to conduct the short-wave long distance communication. (P.S.: This department didn’t have access of satellite communication then.) What’s worth mention here is that the achievement and contribution had been made for more than a decade in domestic broadcast, communication, and television network by the electric wave research center under Professor Chien Peng and Professor Kuang-Hung Pai’s management. In the next thirty years or so, NTUEE electric wave communication field had always been in the leading position. The academic achievement was fully acknowledged and respected internationally.
In August 1963, Professor Chao Hsu became the fourth chairman of the Department of NTUEE. In the nine-year term, Chairman Hsu boosted many significant constructive facilities that had become the foundation of the growth of the Department of NTUEE. In the same year, Chairman Hsu boosted the establishment of NTU Computer Center. The center was first located in the west side of the current Civil Engineering Department Building, which was the location of Electrical Engineering Department. Later on, in 1982, Computer Science Building (P.S. : It is now the Computer and Information Network Center.) was completed, the center was moved to this building. It is still the location of the center at present (2001). The first chairman of this center was Professor Hsing Chang. The first computer was IBM 1620, which was rented from IBM Corp. In May 1964, IBM 1620 arrived Taiwan. It was officially used on June 22. At the same period, the Electrical Engineering Department wanted to assist the NTU faculty to understand more of the principles and the application of computers. They set up the first Computer Seminar in the summer of 1964. The class lasted for six weeks. It was the first Computer Seminar held by colleges and universities. Shortly after, NTU Computer Seminar has become a constant class. The students expanded from the faculty to related institutions outside of NTU and to everyone in the society. Over the last 37 years (2001), more than 45,000 people who have attended the seminar, and more than 26,000 people got certificates from this seminar.
Second, the Department of Electrical Engineering had kept expanding. Around 1960s, the electric power system and electric wave communication have become two most important fields in technology development. Since 1970, the Department of Electrical Engineering has been the first choice of high school students who attend the Joint Collegiate Entrance Examination in the category of engineering until nowadays. In August 1964, the long-ago established Mater Program of the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering had started to recruit. There was only one student in the first year. This student had become the first chairman of NTU Computer Science Department, and he is Professor Hsueh-Yang Li. In August 1968, the Ph.D. Program of the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering was founded, and immediately started recruiting students. In 1972, Professor Chun-Hsiung Chen received the first Ph.D. from this program. Professor Chun-Hsiung became the 8 th chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. In August 1969, the Department of Electrical Engineering expanded to three classes (Includes two classes for local students and one for foreign students). With the higher quality of teachers and students and the gradual growing human recourse, the teaching and researching of the Department of Electrical Engineering have stepped into another stage.
In Chairman Chao Hsu’s term, his another milestone related to the development of the Department of Electrical Engineering was the completion of the Electrical Engineering Building I. Back then, when Professor Chao Hsu and other Institute Professors who studied in MIT Electrical Engineering Department in the U.S.A., Lan-Cheng Chu, Kung-Chieh Yeh, and Hua-Chun Tung got together and discussed the talented people leaving Taiwan to overseas, and the future development of the country’s science and technology. Since then, there had been a plan of “Setting up an Electrical Engineering Building”. They hoped to build a technology magnet and to keep all the educated people with hi-technology knowledge in the country. They hoped to the flowers of computer science bloom. In 1966, when Professor Chao Hsu went to MIT to give a speech, he told the American NTUEE alumni this idea. It immediately caused a huge feedback. Ping-Keng Tien and his superior contributed thirty pieces of instrument from Bell Labs. Dr. Robert Rines from MIT Engineering College also donated US$ 50,000 US to honor his father David Rines. IBM from the U.S.A was also considering donating money. Doctor Hsu-Po Chang donated US$ 1,500, which was the reward of giving speeches in science seminars in two months. The American NTUEE alumni set up an Alumni Organization. They sent four people who had the best grades back to Taiwan to give lectures to help the younger generation get the latest electrical engineering information. In the same year, Professor Chao Hsu donated US$12,000, which was the award of him finishing 12 Electrical Engineering Basic Knowled ge books entrusted by Hsu’s Foundation. It was the fund of constructing the Electrical Engineering Building. After Chairman Hsu’s running around and working hard, many domestic or overseas NTUEE alumni continuously donated money. The Department of Electrical Engineering has been accepted and supported by the NTU. After getting the supporting fund from the school in January 1968, Chancellor Szu-Liang Chien held the ground breaking ceremony for the Electrical Engineering Building I. In June 1969, the Electrical Engineering Building I was completed and in use. At the time, it was a very rare series of events. It was the first building furnished with central air conciliation, and it was the first building completed through collection in NTU.
The Electrical Engineering Building I was furnished with a central air condition, an audio-visual room, small classrooms, libraries and reading rooms, research rooms, laboratories, and a most updated third generation computer then (which replaced the slightly old IBM 1620 computer). It could be the most advanced and completed research building at that time. The building was able to fit in much bigger research equipment. The building had a profound positive influence on the substantial progress of Department of Electrical Engineering in the 1980s.
In 1972, Professor Chih-Chin Ma took over Professor Chao Hsu’s job and became the fifth chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. He was the first graduate who became an administrator in this department. In his term, he had accomplished many plans including some technology development on computer science. In May 1973, Chairman Chih-Chin Ma appointed Professor Te-Sheng Kuo and Professor Hsueh-Yang Li to plan and organize the Department of Computer Science. The Department of Computer Science was founded in August 1977. Professor Hsueh-Yang Li was the first chairman of the department. The Department of Computer Science had soon become the second choice for high school students who attend the Joint Collegiate Entrance Examination in the category of engineering until today. It is only secondary to the Department of Electrical Engineering. Consequently, more excellent high school graduate students had received related realms on electrical engineering and computer science and devoted themselves with their professional skills to our society.
Between 1973 and 1974, under the leadership of Professor Te-Yao Chiang, NTU Electrical Engineering Department signed the first international cooperation plan with the American company, An Wang Corp. They used Wang do matrix printer to invent the first Chinese dot matrix printer. It also expanded the teaching and research realm of semiconductor. Simultaneously, Yu-Hsiang Hsu from the Far Eastern Group offered NTU the “Far Eastern Group Industry Lecture”. They invited Yi-Tzu Ho from IBM Corp. to give lectures. In addition to the fund offered by Yen Tjing Ling Industrial Research Institute and National Science Council, they set up a Semi-Conduct Laboratory and a Thick Film Laboratory. This has set up the teaching foundation of semiconductor in NTU Electrical Engineering Department.
In 1975, the sixth chairman of this department was Professor Te-Sheng Kuo. The University Department had expanded to three classes at this point. The staff and research equipment expanding would make the space in the Electrical Engineering Building I not enough for future use. Hence, the idea of construct the Electrical Engineering Building II was brought up in May 1976. In August 1976, the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering reformed their recruiting system with four groups, A, B, C, and D Groups. Within the four groups, there are seven teaching groups: electronic circuit ,solid state electronic, electric wave , communication , electric power , control , and computer. Since the groups have become more defined and smaller, gradually, more students attended the Examination of the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering. Originally, there were about twenty students studied in the graduate institute for Mater and Ph.D. programs. It had developed to the scale of over a hundred students. This really helped strengthen the growth of the graduate institute of this department. Of course, the need of using more space had become necessary. Although it took six years in Chairman Kuo’s term (till July 1981) to officially get the budget from NTU in 1982 for the construction of Electrical Engineering Building II (Phase I). Compare to the rough and difficult process of planning the construction of Electrical Engineering Building I by the former chairman, the process of the Electrical Engineering Building II was a lot smoother.
Another achievement in Te-Sheng Kuo’s term was the official operation in Yen Tjing Ling Industrial Research Institute. The history of Industry Research Center should trace back to Chairman Chao Hsu’s term. Chairman Hsu took the first step to plan the establishment of the Industry Research Center for the industry research development. However, it did not happen until the term of Chin-Chin Ma in March 1975. He pushed NTU to sign a contract to cooperate on organizing an Industry Research Center with Yen Tjing Ling Industrial Research Institute. Two years later (March 1977), the center was officially in use. Professor Chin-Chin Ma from the Department of Electrical Engineering was the first chairman of this center. Under the situation of not having enough fund, the fund and space offered by Yen Tjing Ling Industrial Research Institute was a big favor for the development of many department in the College of Engineering.
With the expanding of the staff, naturally, the need of expanding the equipment became necessary. In 1997, with the assist from NTUEE alumni, Professor Min-Hung Hung, in 1977 Hong’s Foundation for Education and Culture donated NT$ 5,000,000 in order to constru ct the Electronic Circuit Laboratory. Dr. Hong also donated money to purchase several sets of the expensive microwave equipment. Since then, electric wave group has stepped into the Microwave teaching and researching field. In addition, the Ministry of Education also helped this department purchase a VAX 780 mini computer in 1981. After this, the NTUEE students and students of the computer science lecture got to use a separate host computer. The inconvenient time of sharing a host computer with the Department of Computer Science had ended. In 1980, the Non-reflection Laboratory was founded. This has given a powerful laboratorial support to the electric wave group, which had been had a strong theory background.
In 1981, Professor Hui-Chung Yu was appointed as the seventh chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. Within the short two-year term, Chairman Yu tried his best to boost the teacher’s qualities, and applied for the fund form the Ministry of Education for teachers to complete their Master’s or Ph.D. Degree overseas. Besides that, he also took over the task from the former chairman Professor Te-Sheng Kuo of completing the construction of the Electrical Engineering Building II. In 1982, the Ministry of Education made an appropriation of NT$ 52,500,000 for completing the construction of the Electrical Engineering Building II (Phase I). At the same period, the computer science technology had become more mature, computerization and automation would have a revolutionary influence to future development in the industry. The Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering had set up a CAD Group in August 1982, although the recruit system remained with four groups.
Professor Chun-Hsiung Chen (the first student received the first Ph.D. from the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering of NTU) was appointed as the eighth chairman of this department in 1983. Professor Chun-Hsiung Chen had put an extra effort on emphasizing developing the custom of research within the department. He also put much effort on researches within the country. First, he had reached a consensus with the staff in the department by visiting them one by one. He asked teachers to try their best to apply for researching plans and researching fund other than teaching. In order to set a strict standard for the research results, Professor Lin-Shan Li and Professor Chin-Fu Chang assisted Professor Chun-Hsiung Chen and set up the “Thesis Point Method”. That was to ask teachers and students make more effort on study and researches. The practice of this method had increased the internationalization level and the academic level in the department. It was an important milestone. In the same year, NTUEE Department had started to publish “Research Result Catalog” so as to encourage the teachers and students making efforts on applying researching fund and publish thesis. Several chairmen after Professor Chen kept the same method to encourage the research custom in the department.
In 1983, the construction of the Electrical Engineering Building II (Phase I) had started. One noticeable event was that in the early planning of the construction of this building, NTU had asked Chairman Hui-Chung Yu to cut the planned 3,500 pings into half of the space. However, with the effort made by Chairman Chun-Hsiung Chen and others, the growth of the Department of Electrical Engineering had gotten rid of the impression that the College of Engineering was “leading by Mechanics” and sincerely accepted and supported by the school. That was the reason the building got the chance to keep more than 2,200 pings in Phase I. In August 1985, the east part of the Electrical Engineering Building II had completed. The next year in January (1986), they moved into this building and it had started to be in use.
In 1985, Professor Chin-Fu Chang was appointed as the ninth chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. The encouragement of the researching custom in this department mentioned early started from Professor Chun-Hsiung Chen. Chairman Chin-Fu Chang was right behind and took over this task. Under the policy of encouraging some parts of technology of the Ministry of Education, the space, resources, and fund for the teachers and staff of the Department of Electrical Engineering was much more than before. Chairman Chang grabbed the moment and practiced the policies of expanding teachers and encouraging researches of the Ministry of Education and the National Science Council. Because of that, the amount of teachers in the department was expanding greatly. This had brought a new image to the Department of Electrical Engineering. The special characteristic of the emphasis on researches of this department was formed at this period. Chun-Hsiung Chen and Chin-Fu Change played an important role in this part of the development. In 1985, the amount of publications published in internationally recognized journal from the Department of Electrical Engineering were 2.4 times more than four years ago. The amount of students studied in the Graduate Institute of the Mater’s Program was 206, and the Graduate Institute of the Ph.D. program was 36. The former NTU Chancellor Chung Chao Yu had published a book, “NTU and I”. In the book, he had quoted some parts of the letters between Chairman Chang and Chancellor Chao in 1986. It also tells the process of how the Department of Electrical Engineering had changed. Former Chancellor Yu praised in the letter, “The effort that Professor Chen made has finally blossomed and fruited and the follower had the same spirit. The academic custom has formed in this department. This is particularly precious.”
In August 1987, Professor Ching-Hsiung Wu was appointed as the tenth chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. In the same period, the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering set up the electro-optical group. All teaching groups are separated and individual. The recruiting system has changed to nine groups. In Chairman Ching-Hsiung Wu’s term, he was the first one who set up a Department Development Committee within the county. This committee was responsible for the long-term development. The teachers in the department selected each other as the members of the committee. The chairman was the convener. Because of this, the development direction of the Department of Electrical Engineering became a prospective consideration on both balancing the fields and point support. In addition, the former Chairman Chin-Fu Chang put a great effort on applying the budget for the construction of the west part of the Electrical Engineering Building II (Phase II). The initial plan was completed within Chairman Wu’s term. (December 1987) In August 1988, NTU officially gave an appreciation for the construction of the building. The same month of the year, the Graduate Institute set up medical engineering group. The recruiting system has changed to 10 groups.
The eleventh chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering was appointed to Si-Chen Li in 1989. The next year (September 1990), molecular beam epitaxy Laboratory was founded, which was the laboratory that Profess Chin-Hsiung Wu had been putting effort to set up in his term. In addition to the re-renovated Dust Free Room in Chairman Wu’s term, the research of the hi-technology of semiconductor was promoted smoothly. On top of that, the Department Affair Meeting had agreed in November 1991 to set up a Telecommunication Research Center, and the center was founded in March 1992. Professor Chin-Hsiung Wu was appointed as the first chairman of the Telecommunication Research Center. In August of the same year, (1992) through Chairman Si-Chen Li’s promoting, the Graduate Institute of Electro-Optics was founded. The first chief of the institute was Professor Hung-Chun Chang. The recruiting job for the Mater’s Program of the Electro-Optics Group of the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering was transferred to the Graduate Institute of Electro-Optics.
In November 1991, during the Department Affair Meeting, Chairman Li brought up the idea of reform the department into a college. He assigned the planning and organizing task to the vice chairman, Professor Po-Wen Hsu. In April 1992, Professor Hsu handed in the proposal. The Department Affair Meeting had agreed on this proposal and decided to unite the related units in the College of Engineering to start organizing the establishment of the College of Electrical Engineering. At this time, one department and various institutes was the main structure of this department. The structure of “no groups in the undergraduate department, various groups for different profession fields in different institutes.” was formed. The development of the structure has become part of the long-term plans in electrical engineering related fields. In June 1992, the College Affair Meeting had passed the proposal of establishing the College of Electrical Engineering. It was the beginning of the systematically organized development and research in the electrical engineering field in this country. Later on, the school had decided to freeze the proposals of setting up any new units since the end of 1993. Because of that reason, the proposal of establishing the College of Electrical Engineering were passed in the Administration Meeting and in the Teaching Affair Meeting, and then the proposal went up to the School Affair Meeting. After two important discussions in the school Affair Meeting in March and June, they held an exceptional anonymous vote for the first time. The proposal of establishing the College of Electrical Engineering had officially passed. It has become the ninth individual college of NTU. The Department of Computer Science Department joined the College of Electrical Engineering three years later (August 2000) after it had been founded. The College of Electrical Engineering was renamed “ College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science”. Although it took five years to establish the College of Electrical Engineering (August 1997), the idea was widespread and influencing in the domestic academic field. Most colleges and universities started to follow the example and took the proposal of establish the College of Electrical Engineering as references to set up the colleges of Electrical Engineering. Until today, “the individual college established by the electrical engineering and computer science field” has become the administrative system trend of all colleges and universities in the country. NTU Electrical Engineering Department was the pioneer and had a profound influence.
In 1992, Professor Po-Wen Hsu was appointed as the twelfth chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. Since the “Thesis Point Method” had been practiced for several years, he thought that defining periodicals and calculating points had to make some adjustments. Therefore, he set up a Academic Committee to in charge of the subject. Around the same period, many students were in favor of the research level of this department. The numbers of undergraduate students of this department who stayed and took the Mater’s Program and Ph.D. Program in the same department were climbing year by year. Within several years, the numbers of students who chose to stay in the country for advanced study than going abroad for further study were more than half of all students. It has become an unexpected situation, and the situation had created a precious human resource. At the same period, when the planning phase of establishing the College of Electrical Engineering was going on, the telecommunication industry had opened to all private companies, which had caused the related industries a blooming development. Therefore, Chairman Hsu thought that it was necessary to establish the Graduate Institute of Telecommunication Engineering. The proposal was passed in the School Affair Meeting in March 1993. In August 1993, the west part of the Electrical Engineering Building II (Phase II) was completed. The completion of the Electrical Engineering Building II had been going through the period of 7 chairmen and taken more than 4,800 pings of space. Finally, it was completed and started to be in use. The east part of building was about 500 pings. Since the completion of Phase I (August 1985), it has been used as the College of Engineering Library. In November 1998, the College of Engineering Library was moved to the new NTU General Library. The part of the building was returned to the College of Electrical Engineering from the College of Engineering. At this time, the Department of Electrical Engineering had been showing great results in its researches. On top of that, there were many development and construction going on as well. This had made NTUEE won the highly valued prize of “Absolutely Changed and Refreshed” in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Related Colleges and Institutes Evaluation held by the Chinese Institute of Electrical Engineering ,which was entrusted by the Ministry of Education in December 1993. Since then, NTU Electrical Engineering Department has been the best one in the country and has developed its unshakable reputation.
In March 1993, Chairman Hsu solicited Professor Mao-Hui Li to be responsible for writing and editing the history of this department. This had made the original documents re-organized and sorted. The current History of the Department of Electrical Engineering was mostly updated from Professor Li’s version.
In August 1995, Professor Su-Chang Pei was appointed as the thirteenth chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. At the same period, the Ph.D. Program of the Graduate Institute of Electro-Optics was founded and started recruiting. The original recruiting job for the Ph.D. Program of the Electro-Optics Group in the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering was transferred to the Graduate Institute of Electro-Optics. In 1996, Chairman Pai held the Fiftieth Anniversary Party in his term. Through many international meetings and the CD producing by the Department of Multimedia, NTU Electrical Engineering Department was able to announce its internationalized and outstanding teaching and researching results to the world. Many distinguished NTUEE alumni are now the leaders or the presidents of many leading companies in the unique industry of electrics, electrical engineering, and computer science. They were able to attend this anniversary party to share the honor. From this point of view, NTU Electrical Engineering Department has made a magnificent contribution to the domestic economy.
In August 1997, the College of Electrical Engineering was officially founded. The Department of Electrical Engineering, the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering, and the Graduate Institute of Electro-Opticcal was transferred under the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Professor Po-Wen Hsu, the former chairman, was appointed as the first dean of this college. The Ph.D. Program of the Graduate Institute of Telecommunication, which was approved by the Ministry of Education in March 1994, and the Mater’s Program were both founded at this time. They recruited a s three groups: the Electric Wave Group, the Telecommunication Group, and the Signal Processing Group. These three groups are directly under the College of E lectrical Engineering . The Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering was originally in charge of the recruiting for the Mater’s and Ph.D. Programs of the Electric Wave Group, the Telecommunication Group, and the Signal Processing Group, but the responsibility has been transferred to the Graduate Institute of Telecommunication.
In Chairman Su-Chang Pei’s term, he had other accomplishment. He knew that the CAD d evices had grown to be matured in general industry field, and researches of the CAD and CAM had become an inclusive job to the Department of Electrical Engineering. Aside from that, the integrated circuit had become flourishing. In January 1998, he renamed the CAD Group of the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering to the VLSI/CAD Group. He also assisted the Department of Electrical Engineering establishing the Optical Image Laboratory, and across the colleges and departments, he helped establishing the multi-function Magnetic Resonance Imaging Spectroscopy Laboratory. This had made a further progress to the department research work.
In 1998, Professor Wei-Hsin Wang was appointed as the fourteenth chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering. In order to correspond to the strong need for people who had electrical engineering background from the industry field, the Department of Electrical Engineering started to evaluate and plan the establishment of a Master’s Program for people who were on-the-job. The next year (August 1999), the Undergraduate Program and the Master’s Program were open for the applicants at the same time. At this period, electronics, electrical engineering and information not only had become the main stream of the industry, they also had a leading role on deciding the domestic economy. Due to the great requirement of the market development, educating related talented people had been becoming more important. Therefore, the industries and schools had started to cooperate more closely and had more interaction. In April 1999, the College of Electrical Engineering started the “Career Establishing Lecture” and the “Academic Lecture”. The Department of Electrical Engineering set up a “Distinguished NTUEE Alumni Award”. At the first “Career Establishing Lecture”, Chancellor Wei-Chao Chen proudly presented the award to Min-Hung Hung, Hsiung-Cheng Tsao, and Pai-Li Lin, who are the outstanding and distinguished NTUEE alumni in the industry field. (Academia Sinica academician, Professor Min Shih, received the award at the first “Academic Lecture”. This situation had attracted numerous media reporters at the scene and given some significant reports. All of these proved the NTUEE alumni’s outstanding achievements.
In April 1999, the Department of Electrical Engineering received the first batch of equipment Intel Corp., and then set up a “Network and Multimedia Laboratory”. In the same month, the College of Electrical Engineering set up a way to evaluate teachers. At the same time, all teachers had to follow the college policies to be evaluated in teaching, researching, and services. This was to maintain the high-level performance of NTU Electrical Engineering Department. In May of the same year, the Department of Electrical Engineering got an excellent review from the Research Unit of NTU. The Evaluation Committee suggested the department to make good use of what it had and developed from there to continue the good work and to climb a top international department.
According to the excellent performance of this department research, in January 2000, the department got the first approval of the Pursuing Remarkable Academic Development Plan. Instrument, equipment, and human resource were sufficiently offered. The space of the old College of Engineering Library, which was moved to the new General Library in November 1998, had finished renovating. From this point the Electrical Engineering Building II had completed belonged to all units in the College of Electrical Engineering. After the foundation of the Graduate Institute in August 2001, the scale had been expanding until the 21 st century. Comparing the number of three professors, and thirty something of students 56 years ago, NTU Electrical Engineering Department had grown to have 102 full time teachers, 739 undergraduate students, more than 480 Mater’s and Ph.D. students. More than 170 international quality periodicals were published. Every year receives more than NT$ 200,000,000 fund for researches. There is a strong strength built by the NTUEE alumni in the academic and industry fields in the country or oversea. The Department of Electrical Engineering of NTU has become the strongest department in this country. As being part of the Department of Electrical Engineering of NTU, we shall try harder and make it one of the bests in the world. We look forward to the further development of the Department of Electrical Engineering of NTU, and the contribution we can offer to our society.
Department of Computer Science
The Early Stage
The Department of Computer Science was founded in 1977. They recruited undergraduate students in the beginning. The Graduate Institute of Computer Science was founded in 1981, and had started recruiting Master’s students. The Ph.D. Program of the Graduate Institute of Computer Science was founded in 1984. Hence, the high quality and completed computer science education system had been established.
In 1977, the “Department of Computer Science” of NTU was officially founded. The first recruit was 40 excellent students. The fist cradle of maintaining and creating of the domestic and overseas computer science industry was founded at this point. It had started her non-stop and “Hundred years of educating” job.
When the department was founded at the beginning. The chairman of the department was Professor Hsueh-Yang Li. It was under the persuasions and assist from other several professors, this department was transferred under NTU. The professors with the most contribution were Professor Hsueh-Yang Li and Professor Chien-Ping Wu. They were both the professors teaching in the Department of Electrical Engineering of NTU. Professor Wu was the chief of the NTU Computer Center. They proposed the idea of establishing the “Department of Computer Science” in the School Affair Meeting. They hoped to create another professional research place for computer science other than the only group, the Computer Group under the Department of Electrical Engineering. They also hoped to be ready for the new ear of domestic computer science. It was finally approved and the “Department of Computer Science” was founded and started recruiting in 1977.
In the early stage, there was no classroom or equipment belonged to this department. There were only one chairman, 40 students, an assistant teacher, and a full time teacher. (This full time teacher was Professor Ching-Ye Hsu. Back then, Professor Hsu was still a student of the Ph.D. Program in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He was transferred to the Department of Computer Science as a lecturer.) The chairman of the department “rented” a laboratory located on the second floor in the College of Engineering Building as the department office. Continually, he hired an assistant teacher and a staff. They were sitting in front of each other. There was a screen in the office. The chairman was sitting behind the screen. There was no any computer equipment, electronics research instrument. With 40 students and one chairman, Professor Hsu started his hard and long first year in this department. Chairman Li was in charge of teaching “General Introduction of Computer”, and Professor Hsu was in charge of teaching “Computer Progr amming” (FORTRAN was mainly taught). At that time, the Computer Center changed the old CDC-3150 computer (it was a batch processing computer) to the new model, UNIVAC 1100 computer. The process of students writing a computer program was that first they had to line up in the Punching Room in the old College of Engineering to punch in. After punching in, they could get a old Department of Electrical Engineering Building card. Then the machine would read the data and the program. After that they had to go up to the fourth floor to get their reports.if there was anything wrong in the card, the data in the card would be deleted, and the whole process had to be started all over again. If it was smooth, an assignment would take a week to accomplish. Under Professor Chien-Ping Wu’s immense assist, the students did not have their own equipment, but they got to use a real computer.
In May and June 19 78, the department finally received their first equipment. It cost over NT$300,000. The department bought an 8-bit, micro-computer with a Z-80 CPU. form Acer Corp., which also had just been founded not long ago. It was a small personal computer. It came with a printer, a terminal. The efficiency was worse than a common PC nowadays. The equipment was put in the dark room of the office. There were 40 students lining up to use it. The assistant teacher was in charge of arranging the line-up list. This equipment was also used for researches. You can easily picture the situation back then. However, this was the first department equipment, and it meant very much to the teachers and students in the Department of Computer Science.
In the second year, there were still 40 students being recruited. The freshmen were now the sophomores. Teachers are needed in all important required courses. Professor Mu-Hsiung Liu was transferred from the Department of Mathematics. Professor Pao-Chun Liu, and Professor Hui-Chung Yu, Professor Chien-Ping Wu, and Professor Nai-Cheng Liu were all contract teachers under the Department of Electrical Engineering and started teaching in this department.
There were more and more professors later on. Some professors were not contract teachers under the Department of Electrical Engineering so they didn’t have their own research rooms. In 1979, the chairman rented two rooms from Yen Tjing Ling Industrial Research Institute used as teachers’ research rooms. Teacher Ching-Yi Hsu, Mu-Hsiung Liu, Yao-Chung Tang, and Feng-Ching Lin all had spent some time in those two rooms. Besides, the rooms used as the Electronics Laboratory were rented from the Yen Tjing Ling Industrial Research Institute. Today, the older electronics equipment in the Logic Laboratory were purchased at this period. Later on, the department purchased another several microcomputers.
In 1981, the first year of students graduated. At the same time, the Graduate Institute was founded. It was around this time that the department had its scale. Although everything was simple and basic, the effort was not made in vain. It had built the foundation for the future development.
In August 1982, the Department of Computer Science Building was completed. Since then, the Department of Computer Science had step into another stage. In fact, the first larger computer, a Prim-750, was purchased in March 1982, but there was no space for it and to make good use of it. This computer was temporarily put in Chih Hung Building belonging to the Department of Mechanics and was moved to the fourth floor of the Department of Computer Science Building after it was completed in September of the same year.
We should thank to the entire young and working hard assistant teacher for the completion of the Department of Computer Building. Without them, this building would not be complete as smoothly as it could be. Every seat is a separated room and the spacious room in the Terminal Room where everyone uses now shows how much effort the teachers had put in making a well-planned environment. Although the wires of the machines were designed to be at somewhe re, the assistant teachers connected the entire wires one by one from the laboratory to the mainframe. In order to complete the electrical equipment, every laboratory had to have grounding wire. The grounding wire of the department building was connected by a large piece of copper plate. This copper plate was buried under the unpaved road. This was also those assistant teachers’ work.
In fact, the great contribution given by the assistant teachers can not be neglected. That was because of the lack of equipment and space. When the department office was located in the College of Engineering Building, there was only one assistant teacher, one staff, and one chairman. The chairman had to teach everyday and to go to meetings. Most of the time, the assist teacher was sitting in the office helping students select their courses, arranging the list of using the computers, marking the assignments and grades, and every other little things. They even planned the first Welcome Party for the freshmen of this department. When everything had to be moved to the Department of Computer Science Building, they hired trucks and moved all the equipment from the Yen Tjing Ling Industrial Research Institute.
Those excellent and young assistant teachers organized everything in the Department of Computer Science and were the bridge between teachers and students. That was why this department was able to grow dramatically within ten years. “Excellent work” should be the appropriate compliment for them. After graduating from this school, they have all achieved something else.
Growing Stage
In 1983, Professor Lin-Shan Li was appointed as the second chairman of this department. After taking over the position, Professor Li immediately started planning of the Ph.D. Program. The proposal was approved by the school.
The next year, they started recruiting Ph.D students. At the same period, the “AI Laboratory” was founded, which motivated AI researches. The “Five Year AI Group Research Program” was made. It is the first AI group research program in the country. This had brought in enough funds for the researches. It had a profound influence on the research development in the Department of Computer Science.
In 1985, Professor Shun-Chin Hsu led some studen ts to attend the International Computer Chess Game and won the second place. It was a big news in the computer science industry in the country. Professor Li thought that the full time teachers were not enough in this department, he made every effort to get more teaches for this department. In 1987, he hired seven full time teachers, Chang-Yuan, Chia-Lin Wu, Li-Cheng Fu, Wen-Chin, Chien-Hui Chen, Chang-Sung Yu, and Fei-Pi Lai. In 1988, Professor Chang-Sung Yu was transferred to the Department of Information Management and was appointed as the first chairman of that department. Professor Chao-Hsiung Huang, who was the pioneer of computer network research in this country, also joined this department in the same year. This had risen the teacher’s quality of this department. Professor Li was temporarily appointed as the chief of Division of Computer Science of Academia Sinica between 1991 and 1997. This had increased the interaction between this department and the Division of Computer Science of Academia Sinica.
Professor Feng-Ching Lin was appointed the third chairman in 1987. Except trying his best to apply for “Parallel Computation Group Research Program” which was the second largest program, he boosted the high-speed computer researches. Former President Teng-Hui Li visited this department and was satisfied with the research results in May 1988. Due to the gradual expanding of this department, the space had been becoming not enough for use, they started to plan to construct a new Computer Science Building. In October 1989, the Legislative Yuan passed the Engineering Budgets. The space of the building is 1,600 pings. Professor Lin was temporarily appointed as the chairman of the Construct Bureau in Taipei City Government between 1994 and 1998. He was, later on, appointed as the President of Institute for Information Industry, and he brought the power of this department to the country.
In 1990, Professor Yi-Peng Lin was appointed as the fourth chairman of this department. He was also the Convener of the Institute of Computer Science in National Science Council. He has expanded the influences of this department and the computer-science education field. He promoted the Group Research Program and Industry Academy Cooperative Projects . Professor Lin also set up four basic research directions for this department. They are the “High Performance Computing System”, “Computer Telecommun ication and Multimedia System”, “AI and Chinese Computing System”, and “Parallel Program Language and Software Developing Environment”. The related laboratories were established gradually. It was the foundation of the group researches in the computer science field in the country.
In 1992, the department hosted the Parallel and Discrete System International Conference. The next year, which was 1993, the department had moved into the new department building. In August 1994, the National Science Council set up a Computer System Research and Development Center. Professor Yi-Peng Lin and Professor Chieh Hsiang were separately appointed as the first and second chairman of the center. Later on, Professor Lin set up the “ Computing System Research Center” in the College of Engineering to integrate all related computing researches and development in this university. The center was founded in 1996. Professor Chien Hsiang was the chairman of the first and second year of the center. Two years later, Professor Hsiang was transferred to be the Dean of College of Technology in National Chi Nan University, and Professor Ming Ou Yang took over the position of the chairman of the center.
In 1996, Professor Ching-Yi Hsu was appointed as the fifth chairman of this department. In the same year, Professor Chia-Lin Wu was temporarily appointed as the chairman of the Department of Computer Science in National Chi Nan University. Professor Wen-Chin Chen was temporarily appointed as the chairman of the Graduate Institute of Computer Science in National Chi Nan University. This has built the interactive relationship between this department and the National Chi Nan University. In March 1997, six students from this department attended the International ACM Programming Contest and won the fourth place. In this contest, these students beat the students from Stanford University, Harvard University and MIT. They were also the first team who solved the first six questions. At the end of 1997, this department hosted ISPAN’97 and PRFTS’97.
In January 1999, Professor Chieh Hsiang took over the position of the convener for the Computer Science Institute in National Science Council (Until December 2001). In April 1999, Intel Corp. contributed a batch of equipment to this department; therefore, the “INTEL Laboratory” was founded. In May of the same year, the first teaching evaluation of the Department of Computer Science was completed. The result was satisfying. At the same period, the department started to set up a Mater’s Program for people who were on-the-job, and started first recruiting in 1999.
In October 1999, the Ministry of Education passed the proposal for expanding classes of this department. Right after that, in August 2000, this department joined the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and started cooperating with the Department of Electrical Engineering. It had become the heavy-duty research institute in the computer science field in the country. Within this period, Chairman Hsu put every effort to apply the budget for the construction of the Computer Science Building (Phase II). He had finished beginning plans for the construction within his term.
In 2000, Ming Ou Yang was appointed the sixth chairman of this department. In August of the same year, the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science was founded. In correspond to the change and needs of information society in the new century, two new graduate institutes were founded. They are the Graduate Institute of Information Network and Multimedia, and the Graduate Institute of Bioinformatics. In August 2000, the undergraduate department expanded to two classes. Some fo the research equipment was expanded too. At this time, the space in the Computer Science Building was not enough for use any more. The department started planning the construction of the Computer Science Building II. The civilians contributed the fund for it. It was completed in September 2004 and started to be in use.
The year 2000 and 20001 were the harvested years. In the industry and academy cooperation aspect , according to the “Getting donation and its allocation method for NTU full-time teachers who serve in the profit-making organization or group in full time or part time basis”, professor Chao-Hsiung Huang in this department donated NT$ 5,000,000 to NTU. He was appointed as a part-time President in CyberLink Corp., which was the first time in this field. In international academic contests, the results had been satisfying. For example, six students attended the First CSIDC hosted by IEEE Computer Society and won the second place. President Shui-Pien Chen called to meeting these six students . In September 2000, the department won the second place in the Global competition on the design of information application electrical applicance hosted by HP Corp. In August 2000, this department hosted the 13th Research on Computational Linguistics Conference (ROC LING 2000) and in October hosted The Tenth International Conference on Artificial Reality and Tele-existence (ICAT 2000). In June 2001, IEEE hosted the Second CSIDC. Three students from this department and two students from the Department of Electrical Engineering attended this contest and won the fifth place internationally. These events showed how much effort that Professor Ming Ou Yang had been putting in to promote computer science internationally.
In March 2002, in the “National silicon-guiding plan and Project of expanding ,recruiting and educating students in the Departments of Computer Science, Electrronics, Electrical Engineering, Electro-Optical, and Telecommunication in Universities” , this department got the approval for three extra teachers. In August, National Science Council gave the 1992 “Excellent Work on Transferring Technology Developed Results to the Industries” Award to this department.
In October 2002, this department was responsible for planning the second plan-Multimedia Laboratory of the “The Technology of Computer Science and Electrics Research Integration Center” promoted by the Ministry of Education to integrate research type of universities.
In January 2003, this department and Microsoft Research Center Asia Branch set up the “ NTU-Microsoft Research Center”. In February, the department got the approval from the “National silicon-guiding plan and Project of expanding ,recruiting and educating students in the Departments of Computer Science, Electrronics, Electrical Engineering, Electro-Optical, and Telecommunication in Universities”and got extra two teachers. In May of the same year, Wa Yeu Computer Studio signed an official contract with the department agreeing on assisting the construction of Computer Science Building II (Phase II). The building is named as “Te Tien Buildng”. The ground breaking ceremony was held on June 16. It was completed in September 2004 and stared to be in use at the same time.
The Graduate Institute of Electro-Optical
The institute got the approval and was founded in August 1992. It started setting up a Mater’s Program. It was under the College of Engineering. Professor Hung-Chun Change was the first chairman of this institute. In the first year after it had been founded, the institute office was located on the first floor in the Electrical Engineering Building I. The research work was processed in the Electrical Engineering Building II which was the old laboratory of Electro-Optics Group. In 1993, after the completion of the Electrical Engineering Building II, Phase II, the institute office was moved to the fourth floor of Electrical Engineering Building II, Room 401 and Room 402. The other six rooms next to the office were the research laboratories. Up to 1997, the Electro-Optics Laboratory 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 had been founded separately. On top of that, the Deep UV Laser Laboratory was founded and located on the ground floor of Electrical Engineering Building I. After this institute was founded, the recruiting job for the Mater’s Program of Electro-Optics Group has been transferred to this institute from the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering. In August 1995, the institute set up the Ph.D. Program. The recruiting job for the Ph.D. Program of Electro-Optics Group has been transferred to this institute. On August 1 1997, the College of Electrical Engineering was founded in this university. This institute has been transferred under the College of Electrical Engineering. On August 1 1998, Professor Heng-Wei Tsao was the second chairman of the institute. On August 1 2000, the College of Electrical Engineering was renamed the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. This institute was one of the groups in the electrical engineering research field.
The institute currently has 18 professors, 3 associate professors and 8 assistant professors, all with PhD degrees. Teaching and research activities are mainly carried out in the following labs located in the Electrical Engineering Building: Electro-Optics Labs (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9), Optical Communications Lab, Integrated Optics Lab, Deep UV Laser Lab, Electro-Optics Lab, and Optical Signal Lab. There are more than 50 Electro-Optics related courses in the curriculum for students to choose from.
For the enrollment for students pursuing master degree in this institute, in addition to the written examination of admittance in April of every year, the examinees graduated from domestic universities or colleges (including newly graduated) who match the requirements of this university and our institute may apply for the grading examination of this institute within the limit of time set up by the university. The number student admitted in the grading exam will not be more than 50% of the number of expected admittance in that particular year. The admittance of doctorate candidates starts in June of every year. Currently the number of admittance each year is 50 for master students and 15 for PhD. Also, there are 7 positions of PhD candidates provided for the master students who are willing to pursue PhD degrees directly.
The focus of research in this institute at the moment consists of Fiber Optical Communications, Fiber Optics, Integrated Optics, Semi-conductor Laser and Photodetectors, Electro-Optical Phenomena in Semi-conductors, Electro-Optical Technology, Laser Technology and Electro-Optical Applications, Non-linear Optics, Electro-Optical Measurement, Biomedical Applications of Electro-Optics, etc. In the university, we actively promote the cross-department collaboration in research efforts as well as close cooperation with the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering. External to the university, we vigorously involve ourselves in cooperation with various governmental and privately owned industries and research organizations in carrying out research programs while having close academic interactions with local and international scholars and experts.
Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering
Realizing the expeditious growth of telecommunication technology in relation with radio waves and communications, the continuous development of economies in 21 st century countries are in very deep needs for professionals with master and PhD degrees in the area of telecommunications. Therefore, after the thorough consideration, the Department of Communication Engineering proposed the establishment of “the Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering for Masters and PhD” in 1992’s second meeting for college affairs of College of Engineering at 12 March, 1993, and the proposal has been accepted. At 16 March of the same year, the proposal was submitted to Notification of Teaching Affairs in the 1818 th administrative meeting. On 22 March, the proposal was submitted to the Notification of University Affairs in 1992’s third meeting of teaching affairs. On 27 March, the proposal was approved in the 1992’s first meeting of university affairs of the second term. The proposal was then submitted to Ministry of Education in June 1993. The PhD classes were approved under the official document issued by Ministry of Education numbered Tai(83)Adv.009993 on 26 Feb. 1994, and the master classes were approved under the official document issued by Ministry of Education numbered Tai(85)Adv.(1) 85514737 on 12 Aug. 1996. The number of students admitted for 1997, 60 for master students and 17 for PhD students, was approved under the official document issued by Ministry of Education numbered Tai(86)Adv. 86011441 on 5 of Feb. 1997.
On 1 Aug, 1997, the Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering (known as GICE as follows) was officially instituted and incorporated with “radio wave division” and “communication and signal processing division”, which were originally part of the Graduate Institute of Electrical engineering, and father divided into “radio waves”, “communications” and signal processing” divisions for graduate studies in order to nurture advanced research workers in the field of telecommunication technology and to build the foundation for the development of telecommunication technology in this country. The first Head of the Institute was Prof. Hsueh-Chih Li. In Apr. 1999, the two divisions of “communications” and signal processing” were merged into a single division of “communications and signal processing.” Hopefully by the organizational restructure, it could further enhance long-term, fundamental, forward-looking and integrated academic research in communication engineering and improve the academic level and of telecommunication technology nationally and internationally. Prof. Mao-Chao Lin stepped in as the second Head in Aug. 2000, followed by Prof. Ming-Hsien Chen as the third Head in Aug. 2003.
Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering
In the past decades, the rapid growth of electrical technology has brought many relevant industries to their attention, including semi-conductor, manufacturing process equipment, IC design and other design industries related to electrical system, which have swiftly and continuously grown. Is has not only became the indication of our national flourishing economy, but also the keystone of national survival and development and the driving power of advanced technology, directly or indirectly supporting the development of many industries such as information, electro-optics, communications and multi-media and further bioelectrical technology and so on. Without a doubt, high-tech electrical industry plays the most crucial part of Taiwan’s economical development. However, due to the speeding industrial progress and so-called global competition, the desperate demands for professionals and technological upgrades are now the vital challenges to industrial growth. As the need for the talented professionals is so frantic, NTU does not hesitate to shoulder the responsibilities of training high-tech electrical personnel and upgrading R&D techniques to promote the national industrial technologies and to lead the world in pioneering research.
The department and institute associated with electrical industries that NTU originally had were the Department and the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering. In the institute, there are three divisions of electrical circuits, solid state electrics and VLSI/CAD, generally referred as the field of electrical engineering, which have been dedicating in the areas of electrical systems, semi-conductors and IC design for training of the professionals and academic research. Currently there are more than 20 professors, which are considered the research team with the largest, most powerful and most effective members. In recent years, the research results developed by these three divisions of faculties and students have been published in SCI, and the quantities and qualities have been considered excellent and received international reputation. Some of the research works were the first completed or published. At the same time, the research result of cooperation with industries was so abundant that the number of transfers of research result to industrial firms increased year by year and the participating firms were pleased. Therefore, is started brewing in the fall of 1999 to merge all three division into the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering with two divisions of “IC and systems” and “solid state electrics”, while recruiting new faculty members and increasing the number of admittance for master and PhD student to accelerate the nurturing of high-tech R&D professionals needed by electrical industries, to build the foundation for the development of Taiwan’s electrical technologies, to strengthen the long-term, fundamental, forward-looking and integrated academic research in electrical engineering, and to further improve the academic level of electrical technology nationally and internationally.
After more than two years of preparation, the Graduate Institute of Electrical Engineering (GIEE) was officially opened on 1 Aug. 2001 and started operating. At the time that electrical industries were in urgent need of technical upgrade such as this, that NTU has established GIEE has brought a great help in educating high-tech professionals in electrical engineering and promoting the development of Taiwan’s high-tech electrical industries.
At present GIEE has “IC and systems” and “Nano-electronics” divisions, which are dedicated in the training of professionals and academic research in the areas related to electrical systems, semi-conductors and IC design. There are more than 30 professors at the moment, among which there are 4 IEEE fellows and 1 OSA fellow, and which is considered as the largest, most powerful and most effective faculty. GIEE educates the high quality R&D professionals needed by IC and electrical industries, sets up the foundation for national development of electrical technologies and provides the forward-looking and integrated academic research. In order to elevate the research level for educating high-tech professionals, GIEE establishes System-On-Chip R&D center to combine the pulses of industrial development, to actively promote the cooperation of academic and industrial institutes and participate research project, and to transfer the research to the industrial firms. This R&D center has united the available resources of NTU, absorbed all available creative ideas, and matched the trend of future industry to develop core technology for advanced system chips and to nurture the professionals in system chips, making them the navigators of the system chip design for the improvement of Taiwan’s international competitiveness.
Looking head, to accommodate the need for the development Taiwan’s electrical industries and consider the manpower and planning of GIEE, the direction of development and the emphasis of research lie on the designs of IC system chips and design and manufacturing processes of nano-electronic components. For the designs of IC system chips, the primary goal is the design, integration and testing of system chips, and the designs and integration of multimedia and communication IC (including analog, digital and combo IC) and systems. In addition, the focus will be also placed on the tools for electronics design automation and the R&D of power electronics systems. At the moment, people in GIEE have had success in multimedia IC, communication system chips, RF/IF IC, PDP Controllers, electronics design automation and power electronics systems and will stay as the leader of this field in the years to come. As for nano-electronics, GIEE has experienced faculty members and strong R&D teams in the building and simulation of semi-conductor, micro-electronics and nano-electronics component models in various applications, as well as the architecture of micro systems with nano components. GIEE takes the advantage of the industrial and academic cooperation and dedicates itself in improving academic research and enhancing industrial-academic and international cooperation, provides creatively ingenious design professionals and views creating technological leaders with visions as the lifetime goal.
GIEE is equipped with hundreds of PC and work stations, as well as m olecular beam epitaxy cabinet, vacuum coating system, IC processing equipment and various rapid heating platforms . The primary laboratories consist of: IC design lab, distributed system and network lab, micro-electronics lab, DSP/IC design lab, NTU-MediaTek wireless research lab, RF IC design lab, integrated system lab, electronics design automation lab, membrane lab, industrial electronics lab, IC testing and verification lab, infra-red lab, micro system research lab, VLSI and system lab, m olecular beam epitaxy lab, applied electronics lab, silicon-gold-oxygen semi-component process lab, integrated optics lab, CAD system lab, ultra-fast electro-optical and semi-conductor laser lab, C-V lab, electrical circuit research lab, non-crystallized and multi-crystallized silicon membrane transistor lab, electro-optics lab, Access IC lab, organic electro-optical semi-conductor and component lab, optical measuring lab, advanced silicon processed electro-optics lab, and liquid epitaxy and electro-optical semi-conductor component process lab.
Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia:
In the aspect of education, to close up the gap between academia and industrial requirement, our institute cooperates with the information education improvement program from the Ministry of Education. We work out key courses on network and multimedia domain and reinforce their material and the environment for practical training and creation. In this way, we can actively cultivate the urgently needed high level talents for the development of National Information Infrastructure and network and multimedia industry.
As for research, our institute will match up with the focal research items and the prospective research topics planned by the National Science Council and encourage the integration in the institute and even interscholastic research team . Thus, the research standard can be elevated and hopefully our institute can become one of the world’s first class research places in network and multimedia.
In the industrial cooperation side, our institute will work actively together with other related units in our university to inform our research results to the industry. We will also initiatively exchange visits with industries to understand their research requirements and looking forward to accomplish more cooperation projects between academic and industry. This can not only promote the practical values of our institute’s research results, but also can assist in raising the technology research ability of the industries.
For the interscholastic and international cooperation, to elevate the international publicity and the academic position of our institute, we will urge our professors to participate actively in the international academic organizations and we will strive for holding large-scale academic conferences. To make our institute more internationalized, we will vigorously interflow with foreign eminent universities, exchange graduate students, invite foreign professors for short term courses, and open up the faculty applications to foreigners.
