Adam Beece, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering (ECSE), has been named the 2010 GlobalFoundries/Global Research Collaboration (GRC) Fellow.

Offered through the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the fellowship is reserved for the nation’s most promising future researchers. Beece is one of eight U.S. doctoral students to receive a GRC fellowship in 2010 — and the first Rensselaer student in a decade to earn the award.

“The SRC program is distinctive because it looks for those students who genuinely have the potential to be future leaders in the semiconductor industry,” said James J.-Q. Lu, ESCE associate professor and Beece’s adviser. Lu also cited the significance of Beece’s selection for the only GRC fellowship co-sponsored by GlobalFoundries, which is building a plant in Saratoga County, N.Y.

The fellowship covers tuition and fees for up to five years and provides a monthly stipend. In addition, GlobalFoundries assigns Beece an industry adviser to serve as a mentor and provide an industrial perspective.

Beece has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and a master’s from Rensselaer. His research focuses on applying 3-D integration and through-strata-via (TSV) technology to improve on-chip memory and computer processing speeds. Beece uses simulation to model and evaluate different configurations of memory systems. The goal is to find ways to increase data bandwidth and minimize memory delays while consuming less power, generating less heat, and taking up less space.

By identifying the tradeoffs of different 3-D TSV architectures, Beece’s simulations can help designers weigh the cost of 3-D integration against the benefits and help them decide how to best deploy 3-D technology.