The Berkeley Wireless Research Center was designed by Heller-Manus Architecture who sought to combine open forum spaces and quiet personal workspaces in a reconfigurable environment. BWRC is a modern 12,000 square foot state-of-the-art facility containing 81 workstations, a classroom, conference room, library and open forum for informal discussions. The facility also contains a fully equipped laboratory for testing integrated circuit proof-of-concept prototypes. The Center’s infrastructure has extensive computing resources including over 75 desktop and laptop computers and back-end servers, and is integrated with UCB Campus computing and network resourcesA complete set of integrated circuit CAD tools are available to support system, circuit, and device modelling, as well as the design of system-on-a-chip ASICs. Chips are fabricated by STMicroelectronics, TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and other foundries, using CMOS processes. Current designs use 65nm, 45nm, 28nm, 22nm, and 16nm design rules.
The BWRC laboratory occupies an area of nearly one thousand square feet and contains sixteen test/measurement benches, two microprobe stations, one soldering/rework station and two optical tables for photonics research. The laboratory provides a wide range of general-purpose instruments including signal generators, spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, oscilloscopes, and noise analysis systems as well as specialized equipment for high frequency RF testing. Testing is integrated with the design environment through on-line measurement processing, instrument control and test reporting.
The EECS Department at UC Berkeley, has an extensive computer network, with over 1000 machines that are professionally managed and supported by a computer user support group and an infrastructure support group. The PIs as well as their graduate students have access to high performance workstations and state-of-the-art laptops that are part of this professionally managed network.
The facility also includes front and back patios with a beautiful garden featuring native and drought-resistant plants.