During his career, Colin worked on, and directed, several hundred projects involving research and consulting in a number of areas including building vibration and noise, transformer noise, aerodynamic noise, traffic noise and general environmental noise control.
In his last twenty years, the microelectronics industry was a key area of focus, with the design of low-vibration facilities for the research and fabrication of integrated circuit "chips". Colin developed a strong and unique reputation in this specialized field. Clients included TSMC, Intel, SGS-Thomson, Motorola, Advanced Micro Devices, Samsung, Applied Materials, Mosel Vitelic, LSI Logic, Fujitsu, and National Semiconductor.
Colin was widely recognized within the microelectronics industry for his contributions to the understanding of the vibration and noise environments of technology buildings. He pioneered many of the now-common analytical approaches to floor design and the analysis of noise and vibration from ducting and piping. He was co-developer (with Eric Ungar) of the widely-used vibration criteria for vibration-sensitive facilities. He had mentored many of the current generation of vibration consultants in this field.
He had organized and chaired three SPIE conferences dealing with vibration control and acoustics in advanced technology. He was actively involved in the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technology (IEST) and participated in the development of several IEST Recommended Practice documents.
Clients outside of the microelectronics industry included NASA, Bonneville Power Administration, Southern California Edison, Standard Oil of California, and a large number of architectural and engineering firms. Earlier in his career, he had carried out funded research in areas related to transformer noise and flow-generated noise in ducts. He was a co-developer of a popular child's toy that spoke a number of phrases using an entirely mechanical sound playback system, and of an early generation of a now-popular highway traffic noise model.
Click here to view a selected list of papers by Colin Gordon.
Click here to view a tribute by Michael Gendreau and Hal Amick.