ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990                   TAG: 9004250154
SECTION: FOUNDERS DAY '90                    PAGE: VT15   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

LEE GETS AWARD FOR RESEARCH

Smoothing out the hard edges is a big part of what Fred Lee has achieved in research. On electrical voltage and current waveforms, that is.

Lee, the James S. Tucker professor of electrical engineering and director of the Virginia Power Electronics Center (VPEC) at Tech, receives this year's Alumni Award for Research Excellence. Over the past decade, he has invented new generations of power converters that can speed up switching frequencies tremendously, eliminating switching losses and stresses.

By removing the "hard edges" in electrical current and voltage waveforms and making them "soft, clean, and noise-free," Lee's converters provide a solution to electromagnetic interference, a problem that has dogged industry.

The new technology would allow power supply systems to be miniaturized and decentralized. This is an important step given that power supply systems have continued to take up too much space in computers even as advances in VLSI (Very Large Scale Intergrated) circuit technologies have enabled the computers themselves to become smaller, lighter, yet more powerful.

Now, power supply can be distributed through many little integrated circuits or electronic chips mounted on boards. Computer, automobile, and aircraft manufacturers are among the companies that are excited about the potential for board-mounted power supply.

Power supply systems would also become more reliable and "repairable." "There'll be no need to shut down the power supply for repairs. With on-line replacement, you simply remove the defective part and plug in a good one," said Lee.

Lee's work has opened up an area in power conversion research and development that is currently being studied by researchers all over the world. Lee has won seven "best paper" awards at various technical conferences and holds six patents on the technology, with three more pending.

The Taiwan native earned a Ph.D. from Duke University and joined Tech in 1977 after working for three years at TRW. He has supervised to completion 22 M.S. and 12 Ph.D. students, and is presently supervising another 12 Ph.D. candidates. Last year, he was selected to receive the William E. Newell Award for "outstanding achievement in power electronics" by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. 


 by CNB