CAREER: Digital Signal Conditioning Techniques to Improve Integrated Circuit Design Performance

这项研究的目标是开发高性能模拟/混合信号集成电路，这对无线通信、传感器网络、健康和生物技术应用的进步至关重要。该方法是使用在数字逻辑中实现的信号处理算法来巧妙地修改模拟信号的统计特性，以便不可避免的晶体管非线性和制造过程可变性不会降低电路性能。智力上的优点是，它是一个有前途的，从根本上不同的方法，不依赖于野蛮的电路优化，而是应用优雅的信号处理原理来提高电路性能。它为轻松的模拟电路设计权衡了算法复杂性，从而降低了功耗、模具面积、设计时间，并提供了更高的性能和制造产量。该项目更广泛的影响有三个方面。这将有助于巩固加州在无线通信、传感器网络和消费电子行业的技术领先地位。其次，它将通过提供专门从这些群体中招募的研究生和暑期实习生来参与拟议的项目，鼓励来自代表性不足群体的学生从事高级工程事业。第三，教育活动解决了改变电路设计教育理念的需要。通过在电路设计实践和信号处理理论之间的基本相互作用方面培训未来的电路设计师，它将更好地为他们面对集成电路设计的直接挑战做好准备，并适应其即将从微电子技术向更新技术的演变。

The objective of this research is to develop high performance analog/mixed-signal integrated circuits that are crucial to the advancement of wireless communication, sensor network, health, and biotech applications. The approach is to use signal processing algorithms implemented in digital logic to subtly modify the statistical properties of the analog signals such that inevitable transistor nonlinearity and manufacturing process variability do not degrade circuit performance.The intellectual merit is that it is a promising, fundamentally different approach that does not depend on brute circuit optimization but instead applies elegant signal processing principles to improve circuit performance. It trades off algorithmic complexity for relaxed analog circuit design thereby reducing power consumption, die area, design time, and offering higher performance and fabrication yields.The broader impacts of the project are three fold. It will help perpetuate California's position as a technology leader in the wireless communication, sensor network, and consumer electronics industries. Second, it will encourage students from underrepresented groups to take up advanced engineering careers by providing graduate students and summer interns recruited specifically from such groups to work on the proposed project. Third, the educational activity addresses the need for a change in the philosophy of circuit design education. By training future circuit designers in the fundamental interplay between circuit design practice and signal processing theory, it will better prepare them to face the immediate challenges of integrated circuit design, and to adapt to its impending evolution from microelectronics into newer technologies.