TI Korea (CEO Kent Jeon, www.ti.com/ww/kr) November 22, 2012 – TI Korea (CEO Kent Jeon) held the final judging and awards ceremony for the 3rd University Student MCU Paper Contest at the COEX Conference Center on the 21st.

The event was attended by TI Korea CEO Kent Jeon and executives, as well as 8 teams that advanced to the finals. The MCU Paper Contest, now in its 3rd year, was organized with the aim of actively supporting the expansion of the domestic MCU development foundation and nurturing young future talent who will lead the global MCU market. The contest was conducted targeting university and graduate students nationwide enrolled in electronics and electrical engineering-related departments, and participants submitted various projects based on TI's MSP430, C2000, and Stellaris MCU.

From April 2nd to September 21st, students from universities nationwide submitted papers individually and in teams, and 8 teams that passed the first round of screening advanced to the finals with a more competitive rate than ever. The final judging was conducted through presentations of submitted papers and demo demonstrations by participants, and the judging panel consisted of TI Korea MCU engineers. The main evaluation criteria for the final judging focused on the role and utilization of TI MCU, and innovative ideas and ingenuity befitting university students were also highly evaluated.

In the contest held amid intense competition, the grand prize went to the KAIST team that presented "C2000-based Wearable Blind Assistance System: Stereo Vision-based Forward Object Detection System." The grand prize winner received a prize of 3 million won. Additionally, 2 teams won the excellence award, 3 teams won the merit award, and 2 teams won the special award, each receiving prize money of 2 million won, 1 million won, and 500,000 won respectively. Furthermore, Kumoh National Institute of Technology, which submitted the most papers for this paper contest, was provided with TI MCU development tools valued at 1 million won.

In addition, the team that brought the most cheerleaders was given an encouraging award providing an opportunity for direct mentoring with TI Korea engineers, allowing them to share discussions about problems encountered and curiosities they had while preparing for the contest.

TI Korea President Kent Jeon, who attended the awards ceremony that day, said, "I would first like to congratulate the 8 teams that made it to the final judging, and as the years go by, the level of submitted papers has increased, making judging quite challenging." He added, "I hope that the TI Korea University Student MCU Paper Contest will serve as a stepping stone for young university students to develop into creative and promising technical talent who will lead the global semiconductor industry going forward."

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TI provides the broadest range of microcontrollers, from the general-purpose ultra-low-power MSP430™ MCU to the Stellaris® Cortex™-M MCU and real-time control C2000™ MCU, to the Hercules™ Safety MCU. Developers utilizing TI's complete software and hardware tools, comprehensive partner products, and technical support tools will be able to accelerate time-to-market.