$160,000 global design competition launched For students
"The Cypress Innovator Design Challenge encourages students to stretch their imaginations as they develop new ways to use Cypress technology," said Patrick Kane, director of Cypress's University Alliance Program.
Babak Hedayati, senior vice president of marketing at Cypress, added that many students will gain valuable industry expertise by designing with Cypress's ubiquitous PSoC Programmable System-on-Chip.
"Many of the world's most-popular consumer products, including MP3 players, cell phones, laptop computers and appliances use the PSoC Innovation Platform," Hedayati said. "You can also find PSoC in fitness equipment, soda dispensers, baby strollers, automotive navigation systems and many other applications. The design opportunities that PSoC enables students are nearly limitless."
Cypress Innovator Design Challenge contest entries will be solicited from six regions: (1) North America, (2) Europe and the Middle East, (3) China, (4) Japan and Korea, (5) India, and (6) Southeast Asia and ROW (rest of world). Each region will have a first-place prize of $10,000, a second-place prize of $2,500, and a $1,000 third-place prize. The professors of the first-place prize winners in each region will also receive a $10,000 award. In addition, all first-prize winners will compete for the inaugural T.J. Rodgers Innovation trophy and an additional $10,000 cash prize.Kane said the most commercially viable designs of those submitted will be analyzed by Cypress's investment team for possible seed funding. Members of the winning teams also will be guaranteed an interview with Cypress for possible internships, co-ops, or full-time employment.