Main Research Topics
- Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits
Owing to the enormous demands for Internet of Things (IoT), implementation of the compact and ultra-low-power transceiver has become one of the critical research topics in the Integrated Circuit society. In order to achieve this challenging goal, our Lab studies on designing inductor-less transceivers, implementation of the SAW-less transceivers which substitutes expensive SAW filters in the ISM band. Substituting the expensive Power Amplifier Module using MMIC with low cost, high-efficiency switch-mode power amplifiers (Class D-1, E, F) in CMOS is another promising future research topic where PSRR and linearity improvement should be more studied and analyzed.
- Millimeter-wave Integrated Circuits
The advanced RF integrated circuit technology for the millimeter wave regime is essential for several tens of Gb/s connectivity, low-cost, low-power 5G transceivers, and sensors for target detection and imaging. Low-cost 60 GHz wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11ad) technology for a short-range connectivity of Multimedia, and a compact 77-GHz radar sensor for the vehicle automation are only a few examples of the various sensing applications with millimeter-wave Integrated Circuit technology.
- Terahertz Integrated Circuits
Recently terahertz (THz) integrated circuits (ICs) in (Bi)CMOS have gained widespread interests with the advancement of the silicon technology. Considering the impact of the RFIC in its compactness, low-cost, and mass production, the “THz-IC” is ready to open a new era in ultrafast wireless communication, bio-medical imaging, sensing, and spectroscopy. In order to overcome the “Terahertz Gap”, especially in silicon technology, several oscillators and frequency multipliers have been reported with novel design approaches aided by the device technology improvement. However the performance of the silicon device will reach its fundamental boundary not only due to the end of the device scale-down, but also by the inferior performance in passive-elements and process variations in the ultimately scaled-down silicon technology. Our research interests are mainly focused on overcoming the Terahertz barrier in circuit perspective.
