Prof. Taekwang Jang (ETH Zurich) “Where Ideas Inspire: Circuits Crossing the Border”

O Speaker: Prof. Taekwang Jang (ETH Zurich)

O Title: Where Ideas Inspire: Circuits Crossing the Border

O Date: 22.08.09(Tue) 

O Start Time: 11:00AM

O Venue: E3-2#2201(우리별세미나실)

OAbstract:

As circuit designers, we are entering an exciting new era where innovations in circuits are the key enablers for reshaping the future. With the emerging trends in Machine Learning, Internet-of-Everything, Brain-Machine Interfaces, Autonomous Driving, 6G Communication, Quantum Computing, and many more cutting-edge technologies, circuit designers are required to make drastic improvements in accuracy, speed, and energy efficiency.
However, coming up with ground-breaking ideas to achieve such improvements is not always straightforward as we occasionally suffer from a lack of inspiration. In this talk, entitled Circuits Crossing the Border, I will introduce our recent works designed by borrowing wisdom embedded in prior arts. By applying a key concept that is popular in one circuit domain to a different circuit field, crossing the border, so to speak, we have the potential to make a novel topology that achieves a significant performance leap forward. As examples, I will explain 1) an on-chip high-power-density DC-DC converter based on a class-D LC oscillator for frequency synthesizers, 2) a noise-efficient amplifier based on a switched capacitor DC-DC converter, and 3) a low-noise phase-locked loop that adopts AC-coupled phase detectors inspired by instrumentation amplifiers.

O Bio:

Taekwang Jang is currently an assistant professor at the ETH Zürich, Switzerland. He received his B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, in 2006 and 2008, respectively. From 2008 to 2013, he worked at Samsung Electronics Company Ltd., Yongin, Korea, focusing on mixed-signal circuit design, including analog and all-digital phase-locked loops for communication systems and mobile processors fabricated in 20-45nm CMOS processes. In 2017, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan; his dissertation was titled “Circuit and System Designs for Millimeter-Scale IoT and Wireless Neural Recording.” After working as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan for one year, he joined the ETH Zürich in 2018 as an assistant professor, and he is leading the Energy-Efficient Circuits and IoT Systems group. He is also a member of the Competence Center for Rehabilitation Engineering and Science and the chair of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society, Switzerland Chapter.

His research focuses on circuits and systems for highly energy-constrained applications such as wireless sensor nodes and biomedical interfaces. Essential building blocks such as a sensor interface, energy harvester, power converter, communication transceiver, frequency synthesizer, and data converters are his primary interests. He holds 14 patents and has (co)authored more than 60 peer-reviewed conferences and journal articles. He is the recipient of the 2021 IEEE ISSCC Jan Van Vessem Award for Outstanding European Paper and the 2009 IEEE CAS Guillemin-Cauer Best Paper Award. Since 2022, he has been a TPC member of the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), IMMD Subcommittee, and IEEE Asian Solid-State Circuits Conference (ASSCC), Analog Subcommittee. In addition, he served as the chair of the 2022 IEEE International Symposium on Radio-Frequency Integration Technology (RFIT), Frequency Generation Subcommittee.