Research

Power Management Integrated Circuit Design

Power management circuits and techniques are critical for improving energy-efficiency, reducing heat dissipation, and extending the battery life for mobile and embedded applications.

  • Capless analog low-dropout regulators (LDO) and digital LDOs [US Patent 1], [US Patent 2], [ICECS'10], [Book]

  • Light-load efficient and wide-dynamic range DC-DC converters [MWSCAS'09, GoMACTech'11]

  • Energy harvesting Interface, e.g., Thermalelectric generator (TEG)

  • Ultra low-quiescent current analog IPs. [ICECS'11]

Hardware Security and Assurance

Mathematically secure cryptographic algorithms may leak side-channel information when implemented on an FPGA or ASIC. Detecting side-channel attacks are hard because they are passive. Power/EM side-channel attack countermeasures may incur heavy power, performance, and area overhead.

  • Real-time power side-channel attack detection circuits. [ISCAS'21a], [ISCAS'21b], [MWSCAS'21]

  • Leveraging on-chip voltage regulators for power/EM side-channel attack countermeasures.

Signal Electronics Lab Photo

600 square feet of dedicated space for IC testing. ESD flooring installed in 2019, which prevents unintentionally "zapping" ICs. (Nov, 2019)

Electronics Design Automation (EDA)

Our laboratory is equipped with industry-standard IC design software and EDA suits, including:

  • Cadence Analog Design Environment (IC6.1.7-64b)

  • Mentor Graphics Calibre: Layout design (DRC), verification (LVS), and parasitic extraction (PEX)

Process Design Kit (PDK)

We have signed non-disclosure agreements (NDA) with TSMC and UMC to use their selective technologies for research prototyping.

  • TSMC: 65nm RF/MS/GP CMOS. IP available: Standard cell libraries, I/O, ESD

  • UMC: 130nm CMOS.

Laboratory Space and Equipment

Room: ATRC 235 (600 square feet)

Purpose: Dedicated space for IC test and measurement. ESD protected.

Mixed-Signal Oscilloscope

MSOX 6004: 20Gs/s, 1GHz BW

4-Channel Power Analyzer

N6705C

Triple-output Power Supply

E36312

7.5-bit DMM

34470 A

Function Generator

33600 A

MS Oscilloscope

DSOX 1204G: 100 MHz + 20 MHz functional generator

Chips Gallery

Dual-mode LDO

UMC 0.13 um CMOS (2020)

Switched-cap PSCA detector

TSMC 65 nm CMOS (2021)



TZLS LDO regulators

ON Semi: 0.6um CMOS (2009)

IEEE ICECS 2010.

Buck converter

ON Semi: 0.6um CMOS (2010)

GoMACTech 2011.

Battery Charger

Maxim: 0.18um BiCMOS (2015)

IEEE ISCAS 2017.

Sponsors

A list of our current and past sponsors: