Two teams of Cornell University graduate students in the university's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering have finished in third and fourth place in phase one of a nationwide integrated circuit-design contest sponsored by the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC).

Both teams will move on to a second phase of the contest, in which the chips they designed will be fabricated by IBM and returned to the students for testing and evaluation. The new challenge will be to demonstrate that the chips work as predicted. The winners of the contest will be announced in July.

The two Cornell teams, both guided by Kevin Kornegay, Cornell associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, were among 15 selected for phase two, out of 59. The goal of the contest is to create innovative circuit designs using silicon-germanium technology, which allows integrated circuit chips to operate at very high frequencies for applications in wireless communication and fiber-optic systems.

Graduate students Drew Guckenberger, Daniel Kucharski and Jing-Hong Conan Zhan placed third with an optical fiber transceiver designed to operate at frequencies up to 10 gigabytes per second. The device combines on a single chip the jobs currently done by three chips in converting electrical signals to and from optical pulses in fiber-optic transmission. The team will receive a $3,000 cash award.

In fourth place, not winning a prize but earning a chance to compete in phase two, were David M. Fried, Ian A. Rippke and Guckenberger. Their project will allow a wireless device, such as a cell phone, to adjust the amount of power it draws, using less power when the device is closer to a base station, resulting in longer battery life.

Teams from the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota took first and second place, respectively.

SRC is a consortium of American manufacturers formed to encourage advanced research under a $35 million program principally at North American universities.