The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (pronounced as eye-triple-ee) is an international non-profit, professional organization incorporated in the State of New York, United States. It is the largest technical professional organization in the world (in number of members), with more than 360,000 members in 150 countries (as of 2004). The IEEE was formed in 1963 by the merger of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE, founded 1912) and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE, founded 1884). It has a dual complementary regional and technical structure - with organizational units based on geography (e.g., the IEEE Philadelphia Section) and technical focus (e.g., the IEEE Computer Society). Most IEEE members are electrical engineers, computer engineers, and computer scientists, but the organization's wide scope of interests has attracted engineers in other disciplines (e.g., mechanical and civil,) as well as life scientists, physicists, and mathematicians. The IEEE's Constitution defines the purposes of the organization as "scientific and educational, directed toward the advancement of the theory and practice of electrical, electronics, communications and computer engineering, as well as computer science, the allied branches of engineering and the related arts and sciences." In pursuing these goals, the IEEE serves as a major publisher of journals and a conference organizer in its fields of interest. It is also a leading developer of industrial standards in a broad range of disciplines, including Power and Energy, Biomedical Technology and Healthcare, Information Technology, Telecommunications, Transportation, Nanotechnology, and Information Assurance. IEEE develops and participates in educational activities within its fields of interest, such as accreditation of electrical engineering programs in institutes of higher learning. It manages a separate organizational unit (IEEE-USA) which recommends policies and implements programs specifically intended to serve and benefit the members, the profession, and the public in the United States.

Notable Presidents of IEEE and its founding organizations include Elihu Thomson (AIEE, 1889-1890), Alexander Graham Bell (AIEE, 1891-1892), Charles Proteus Steinmetz (AIEE, 1901-1902), Lee De Forest (IRE, 1930), Frederick E. Terman (IRE, 1941), William R. Hewlett (IRE, 1954), Ernst Weber (IRE, 1959; IEEE, 1963), and Ivan Getting (IEEE, 1978).

Notable IEEE committees and formats

• IEEE 754 floating point arithmetic specifications
• IEEE 802 LAN/MAN
• IEEE 802.11 Wireless Networking
• IEEE 829 Software Test Documentation
• IEEE 896 Futurebus
• IEEE 1003 POSIX
• IEEE 1076 VHDL VHSIC Hardware Description Language
• IEEE 1149.1 JTAG
• IEEE 1275 Open Firmware
• IEEE 1284 Parallel port
• IEEE 1394 Serial Bus ("FireWire")
• IEEE 12207 Information Technology

See also: Institute of Electrical Engineers (a similar organ in the UK)

See also

• IEEE Computer Society
• IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society

Further reading

• IEEE website (http://www.ieee.org/)
• Complete list of IEEE standards (http://info.computer.org/standards/standesc.htm)
• History of the AIEE-IRE merger (http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/oral_histories/oh_merger_menu.html)