IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Winter 2018 - 66

System-Driven Circuit Design Course in Ireland

A two-day short course, Short-Course
on Selected Topics in Mixed-Signal
IC Design, was hosted by the Circuits and Systems Research Centre
(www.csrc.ie), University of Limerick, Ireland, on 7-8 September 2017.
The seminar attracted 65 delegates
from countries such as the Czech
Republic, Sp a in, India , a nd t he
United Kingdom.
This was the third consecutive
year that the internationally Distinguished Lecturer Prof. Boris Murmann, Stanford University, traveled to Ireland and presented a short
course at the University of Limerick.
Each year, Murmann presents fresh
content and new material.
While the 2015 and 2016 courses
discussed data conversion, the most
recent course shifted the attention
toward modern sensor interfaces. It
covered the design of the constituent complementary metal-oxide-
semiconductor (CMOS) mixed-signal
circuits, spanning a broad range of
topics from electrons and transistors to bits and algorithms. The
overall objective was to deepen the
attendees' understanding of sensor
interfaces and their efficient translation into transistor-level circuits.
The first day began with an overview that identified modern driver
applications, along with typical interface design approaches and associated circuit challenges. Throughout
the course, the considered applications included microelectromechanical systems/inertial sensing and a
variety of examples from the biomedical space. This introduction was
followed by a design-centric evaluation of CMOS technology, using the
gm/ID ratio as the core variable.
The understanding from the gm/
ID-based characterization was then
used to translate block specifications into transistor sizes in a systematic and reusable friendly manner.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2017.2769458
Date of publication: 31 January 2018

w i n t e r 2 0 18

Prof. Boris Murmann discusses modern sensor interfaces.

Prof. Boris Murmann (second row from bottom, on the right) and attendees of the ShortCourse on Selected Topics in Mixed-Signal IC Design.

The considered blocks were typical
interface gain and filter blocks and
included switched-capacitor stages.
This material on gm/ID-based design
was a more detailed treatment of the
introduction given in 2015.
The second day focused on higherlevel concepts and began with a
system-centric exploration of common interface solutions. Focus was
placed on architectural options
that enhance front-end sensitivity

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

and selectivity based on application understanding. This material
also reviewed widely used techniques such as chopping and correlated double-sampling. The final
two lectures looked at the interface
in terms of the processed information. This led to an introductory discussion of compressed-sensing and
machine-learning (inference) techniques, which are currently being considered in advanced research.

http://www.csrc.ie

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Winter 2018