Analog Integrated Circuits for IoT and 5G Transceiver

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In the next decade, wireless technologies will play an important role for the evolution and the diffusion of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. IoT aims to interconnect together a wide variety of devices such as mobile phone, different kind of sensors, home and industrial appliances. Due to its vastness and irregular population density, Canada is one of the countries where it is much more expensive to develop and maintain a wireless network in Canada. For this reason, Canada is one of the nations that most will benefit from the evolution of its 5G and IoT wireless infrastructures that in high density populated regions (e.g. the GTA) can take advantage from peer-to-peer to improve the efficiency of the network, while emerging low-power wide area networks (LP-WPANs) can be used in isolated areas to monitor installations without requiring a constant human presence on-site.******The variety of the operative modes and frequency carriers introduced by IoT and 5G devices set so many constraints that the integration of a universal wireless transceiver in a single chip remains a dream. While the digital elements of the smart terminals are rapidly evolving by exploiting artificial intelligence and machine learning, the RF front-end of a wireless transceiver remains mainly analog and rigid since some requirements set by 5G operative modes limit its digitalization. The poor flexibility of the radio is also a bottle-neck for emergent research on LP-WAN transceivers. The burst mode operation of such systems demands short initialization times and high level of re-configurability to adjust the performance to the mutable operative conditions.******The proposed research program aims to explore some innovative and ground-breaking ideas to address the above issues and dramatically transform the design of mixed-signal integrated circuits for wireless communications (both 5G and LP-WANs). In particular, we propose the concept of a quantized radio which has the potential of revolutionizing analog-mixed signal designs (not only wireless) since it leads to quantized structures that are digitally reconfigurable and hence better fit with the possibilities offered by the software optimization algorithms.******Graduate students engaged in the investigation of these new IC design approaches will benefit from a unique training in the UofT Labs which will lead them to the development and the characterization of innovative solutions and devices. Hence the proposed program not only represents a great opportunity to enlarge the portfolio of innovation in Canada but it will be also an exceptional training experience for high qualified personnel (HQP).