ICs are at the heart of the rapid developments in mobile telecommunications, multi-media and internet, and in numerous other applications. IC design is of large industrial importance, which is even more true for analog circuit design, in which the European electronics industry has a leading position.
In the Integrated Circuit Design group (ICD-group) we do research on analog and mixed-signal circuits for integrated transceivers in CMOS technology. This includes transmitters and receivers for wireless and wireline communication systems. We develop clever IC design techniques to realize portable, fast and energy efficient communication systems. Current projects are in the field of frequency synthesisers, radio frontends, RF beamforming and cognitive radio.
We think the combination of fundamental research and close cooperation with industry provides the best prerequisite to tackle these exciting challenges in high-frequency analog and mixed-signal circuit design.
ICD: fundamental solutions for practical problems.
Research Topics
Current research:
- Flexible Downconverter
- Very Accurate Reference Circuits in CMOS
- MIRABeam: Multi-beam Interference Robust Adaptive Beamforming
- Ultra Low Power transceivers for IoT (ULPIoT)
- Interference Robust Radio Receiver Techniques
- IRUDIT - Interference Robust Ultra-low-power Digital Inspired Transceiver
- Integrated Class D control (ICDC)
- Slow Wireless
- Seismic MEMS
- Low Energy Circuit Design Techniques
- SHERPAS: Self-HEaling Rf Power Amplifier Systems
- SHERPAS: Self-HEaling Rf Power Amplifier Systems
- New RF Techniques for advanced receivers
- Optocoupling in CMOS (O-i-C)
- Transceivers In Coloured Space (TRICS)
- Hybrid Mixed Analog/Digital PLLs in 28nm FDSOI CMOS
Research in its final phase:
- Building Blocks for RF transceivers in 28nm FDSOI CMOS
- Dependable Distributed Sensor Systems (D2S2)
- Power efficient transducer drivers for underwater wireless communication
- Wideband software defined radio
Research group & facilities
The ICD group has a firm research tradition in bipolar and CMOS circuits, and published many papers on transconductors, ADC's, LNA's, filters, mixers and power amplifiers. Due to many contacts and research contracts with industry, and the part-time position of some members in industry, the industrial relevance of the research program and the knowledge transfer is high.
A strong co-operation exists with the following groups:
The three groups have a common infrastructure offering:
- Modern CAD facilities for IC design (CADENCE, ...)
- Access to several IC processes amongst others via the EUROPRACTICE channel
- Modern test equipment for analog and mixed-signal testing