Each year, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) brings together engineers from all over the world who are working at the cutting edge of integrated circuit (IC) design.

Georgia Tech maintained its strong presence at the conference held in San Francisco from Feb. 18 to 22. As always, the Institute was well-represented, with a diverse contingent of faculty, researchers, and students actively participating in the event.

Silicon Creations Provides Student Support

This year, first-year Ph.D. students had the opportunity to apply for a Silicon Creations Travel Grant to attend the conference. Silicon Creations is a leading silicon IP provider located in Lawrenceville, Ga., co-founded by Jeff Galloway, EE 1998.

"Students in circuit design significantly benefit when they have the opportunity to participate in renowned conferences like ISSCC," said Visvesh Sathe, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). "We are deeply grateful for Jeff's help and the support provided by Silicon Creations, enabling students to actively partake in such an enriching experience."

Four first-year Ph.D. students in ECE — Jaeho Lee, Md Mizanur Rahaman Nayan, Minji Shon, and Michael Boateng — received the grant and attended in person or virtually. Though they didn’t present, the conference was a valuable experience for the students to attend talks, evening sessions, demonstrations, and technical paper presentations.

Making an Impact

Fourteen researchers from Georgia Tech showcased or discussed work in their respective fields at this year’s conference. A significant portion coming from ECE, with nine contributors being from the School.

Arijit Raychowdhury, ECE Professor and the Steve W. Chaddick School Chair, played a particularly large part, serving on multiple subcommittees, organizing two talks, and giving one himself. His talk, titled “Fundamentals of Digital and Digitally Assisted Linear Voltage Regulators,” introduced the fundamentals of all-digital and digitally assisted low dropout voltage regulators and then presented recent advances in circuit topologies.

Sathe also had an active role at the conference, sitting on two subcommittees and helping to organize the "Digitally Enhanced Analog Circuits: Trends & State-of-the-art Designs" forum.

Additionally, ECE Professor Larry Heck and School of Computer Science (CS) Associate Professor Yingyan Lin each gave a talk during the conference’s many forums.

On the first day of the conference, ECE Assistant Professor Shaolan Li coordinated a networking event for Georgia Tech ISSCC attendees, bringing together researchers, students, and alumni.

Showcasing Research

It was also an opportunity for Georgia Tech researchers and Ph.D. candidates to present their latest work to the leading IC design minds.

ECE Ph.D. candidates Sam Spetalnick, Aswin Lele, Brian, and Crafton, Zhijian Hao along with Georgia Tech researchers Michael Chang and Sigang Ryu, and ECE professors Azadeh Ansari and Raychowdhury presented their paper on hardware for bristle robot surveillance.

David Munzer, a recent Ph.D. graduate, also showcased his work on sensors in phased-array applications. CS Ph.D. candidate Jaewon Lee and former CS researcher Edward Liu were co-authors of the paper.