Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE (pronounced as eye-triple-e) is a non-profit, professional organization based in the United States. It is the largest (in number of members) professional organization. The IEEE was formed in 1963 by the merger of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) and the 'American Institute of Electrical Engineers' (AIEE) The IEEE has branches in many parts of the world. Its members are electrical engineers, computer scientists, telecommunications workers, etc. Its goal is to promote knowledge of electrical engineering. One of its most important roles is in establishing standards for computers formats and devices.

It participates in all activites generally associated with professional organizations:

• Editing and publishing peer-reviewed journals
• Consensus-based standards activities.
• Organizing conferences
• Technical publishing, of its own journals, standards, and member-written texts.

Notable IEEE committees and formats

• IEEE 754 floating point arithmetic specifications
• IEEE 802 LAN/MAN
• IEEE 1003 POSIX
• IEEE 1394 Serial Bus ("Firewire")

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

Further reading

• IEEE website
• Complete list of IEEE standards
• Critique of IEEE's banning of contributions from certain nations