1980–1989
The application of fundamental research results to industrial and economic needs and opportunities was a characteristic of the work carried out throughout UCD's years in Merrion Street.
Building energy management systems provider Cylon Controls began life in 1984 on a bench in the electronic engineering laboratories, first as an undergraduate research project and then as a spin-out company led by Seán Giblin. It has since grown to become one of the leading European providers of these systems: monitoring, controlling and reducing energy usage in buildings across the US, the Middle East, China and Europe, with technology that is crucially important for our sustainable future.
The world's first full-specification single DSP chip V32 dial-up modem was designed and built in the digital signal processing (DSP) laboratory in Merrion Street by a team led by Professor Tony Fagan. Over a million devices were commercially deployed after the modem left the research laboratory in 1988, and devices such as this were responsible for first bringing the internet to homes around the world. Postgraduates involved in the research project went on to found companies Massana (later acquired by Agere, now part of LSI) and DecaWave.
