The engineering programs at the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of California, Irvine are getting a helping hand thanks to a $50 million gift from the co-founder of Broadcom Corp., Reuters news service reports.

Henry Samueli and his wife, Susan, donated $30 million to UCLA and $20 million to UCI to increase enrollment in engineering and to create a high-tech business hub in the region.

UCI will use the money in its School of Engineering for faculty research through endowed professorships and fellowships for students. This is the largest private gift to the school.

A third of UCLA's gift will go to construction projects, while the rest will create endowments for graduate fellowships and teaching awards and term chairs.

The engineering schools at both universities will be renamed after Samueli, a UCLA alumnus and a former teacher there. He helped form PairGain Technologies, a telecommunication equipment supplier, in 1988. In 1991 he co-founded Broadcom with Henry Nicholas. Broadcom provides semiconductors that enable the digital transmission of voice, data and video content for home and business applications.

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