As the world continues to digitalize, data-converter integrated circuit (IC) plays a critical role to bridge the digital and real worlds. The next-generation wireless connectivity holds unforeseen challenges with ever increasing demands on low latency, low power, and wide bandwidth. With technology scaling, traditional signal processing in voltage domain becomes increasingly difficult when high dynamic range and high linearity are required. This talk addresses the challenges in high-performance data-converter IC designs using deep-submicron technologies. We present our recent research on time-domain signal processing that has led to a low-power analog-to-digital converter (ADC) IC with state-of-the-art performance. The innovative data-converter technology can be applied to emerging applications such as 5G, autonomous vehicles, smart machines, IoT and digital health.

Biography:

Fa Foster Dai holds a Ph.D. degree from The Pennsylvania State University. He currently holds the Godbold Endowed Chair Professor position at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Auburn University. Prior to his joining Auburn in 2002, he spent 6 years in industry, working as the lead RFIC engineer and technical manager for companies such as Hughes Electronics, Yafo Networks and Cisco-Cognio.

Dr. Dai has served as the Guest Editor for IEEE Journal on Solid State Circuits and the Guest Editor for IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. He has served on several technical program committees including the IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits, IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC) and IEEE Bipolar / BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting (BCTM). He currently serves on the steering committee of the IEEE CICC. He was the 2016 TPC Chair and the 2017 General Chair of the IEEE BCTM. He has served as the 2019 TPC chair, the 2020 conference chair, and the 2021 general chair for the IEEE CICC. Dr. Dai received the Senior Faculty Research Award for Excellence from Auburn University in 2009 and was awarded the Distinguished Graduate Faculty Lectureship by Auburn University in 2021. He received the IEEE Region 3 Outstanding Engineer Award in 2023. He was elected as the Fellow of National Academy of Inventors in 2021 and was elected as the Fellow of IEEE in 2009.