Mixed-Signal Building Blocks

Overview:
Mixed-signal building blocks such as phase-locked loops and analog-to-digital converters remain critical to the overall performance and power characteristics of many integrated systems.  Our projects in this area are therefore developing new techniques enabled by the characteristics of modern, high-performance digital transistors to significantly improve the energy-efficiency of these blocks.

Sub-Projects and People:
Multi-GHz Self-Offset Cancelled Comparators: Lingkai Kong, Yue Lu, Prof. Elad Alon
Energy-Efficient Digital PLLs: John Crossley, Prof. Elad Alon
Energy-Efficient 60GS/s ADC Design: Yida Duan, Prof. Elad Alon
Mixed-Signal RF Power Amplifiers: Lu Ye, Debopriyo Chowdhury, Prof. Elad Alon, Prof. Ali Niknejad

Next-Generation Wireless Circuits and Systems

Overview:
With the movement towards flexible, software-defined or cognitive radios, the availability of 7GHz of unlicensed spectrum in the 60GHz band, and the continued desire to deploy ubiquitous wireless nodes, the next generation of wireless systems will likely have significant different characteristics and constraints than current designs based on narrow-band and fixed frequency radios.  With the mobility inherently enabled by wireless connectivity, achieving these new capabilities at a minimum cost in power dissipation remains one the key challenges.  In this set of projects we are focusing on the circuit and system design techniques that can achieve the energy-efficiencies necessary to enable these next generation wireless applications.

Sub-Projects and People:
Multi-Gb/s 60GHz Wireless Transceivers for Mobile Applications: Kwangmo Jung, Lingkai Kong, Chintan Thakkar, Prof. Ali Niknejad, Prof. Elad Alon
MEMS Radios: Thura Naing, Prof. Clark Nguyen, Prof. Elad Alon

Nano-Electro-Mechanical Integrated Circuit Design and Technology

Overview:
The threshold voltages of today's CMOS transistors are pinned to the point where they optimally balance leakage and dynamic energy consumption, ending the ability to increase performance while maintaining constant power density through simple scaling alone, and forcing the move to parallelism.  Even with ideal parallel scaling, the achievable energy-efficiency of CMOS transistors is limited by their subthreshold leakage.  In this project we aim to develop a new IC technology based on nanometer-scale electro-mechanical switches, whose zero off-state leakage and high on-state conductance allow them to achieve dramatically reduced power consumption.  Fully realizing the potential of this technology requires innovation at every level of integrated circuit design, including logic, memory, communication, power management, and micro-architecture. 

People:
Current: Tuen Kwong, Matthew Spencer, Louis Hutin, Rhesa Nathanael, Fred Chen (MIT), Hossein Fariborzi (MIT), Chengcheng Wang (UCLA), Prof. Tsu-Jae King Liu, Prof. Dejan Markovic (UCLA), Prof. Vladimir Stojanovic (MIT), Prof. Elad Alon
Former: Abhinav Gupta, Hei Kam, Jaeseok Jeon, Vincent Pott, Kevin Dwan (UCLA)