IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Winter 2018 - 81

Distinguished Lecturer Gabor Temes Speaks at EPFL

On 30 August 2017, Gabor Temes
delivered a Distinguished Lecture,
"System-Level Noise Filtering and
Linearization Scheme," as an invited
speaker of the Electrical Engineering
Institute, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne.
The lecture was attended by an audience of more than 100 scientists,
engineers, and students, filling the
largest auditorium in the electrical
engineering building at EPFL. The
Temes lecture was one of the more
memorable events of the year, celebrating the 30th anniversary of
the MEAD lecture series organized
each year in Lausanne and marking
the beginning of the 2017-2018 academic year.
The performance of an analog IC
is limited by the noise generated in
its components. Some of these noises
(thermal and shot noises) have a
white spectrum, while others (dc offset and 1/f noise) are restricted to a
narrow frequency range near dc. Several circuit techniques (correlated
double sampling and chopping) exist
for mitigating the effects of the lowfrequency noise components. In this
lecture, a different design approach
is described for suppressing lowfrequency noise. Unlike earlier techniques, the proposed process also
reduces even-order distortion, which
is another major limitation of analog
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2017.2769469
Date of publication: 31 January 2018

circuits. It, therefore, may allow the
metal-oxide-semiconductor IC techuse of single-ended circuits in some
nologies during the last 30 years.
applications where differential strucHis work in switched capacitor filters
tures are usually needed. For a specihelped define communications chips
fied performance, this may allow a
in the 1980s by conceiving fundamensignificant reduction, as much as
tal design methods for them.
40-50% in complexity and power disAs an educator, Temes has been
sipation compared to the equivalent
responsible for several seminal texts
differential implementation.
on analog signal processing and has
Temes gave a compelling account
coauthored several widely used re of the new design approach propoference books, including the newly
sed for suppressing lowpublished second
frequency noise, with
edition of Understanda very wide range of poing Delta-Sigma Data
Temes gave
tential applica tions in
Converters (Wiley, ISBN:
a compelling
circuit design. The sub1119258278), coauthoraccount of the new
sequent questions and
ed by Shanti Pavan
design approach
comments f r o m t h e
and Richard Schreier.
proposed for
audience highlighted the
This book is a comsuppressing lowpotential value of the nopletely updated and
frequency noise.
vel approach, with the
enhanced version of the
promise of significant
material in the popular
improvements in noise performance.
first edition, emphasizing continFor more than three decades, prouous-time and incremental analoglific research in analog and digital
to-digital conversions, with design
signal processing and mixed-signal
examples as well as computer tools
integrated electronics has had a
for designers.
profound and broad impact, rangAn IEEE Life Fellow, Temes received
ing from classical network theory to
the IEEE Circuits and Systems Sociactive filter synthesis to monolithic
ety (CAS) Darlington Award and the
filter and data converter design. As
CAS Education as well as technical
a professor of engineering at Oregon
achievement awards. He received the
State University in Corvallis, Temes
1998 IEEE Graduate Teaching Award,
is a leading authority on delta-sigma
the 2006 IEEE Gustav Robert Kirchdata converters. His research on filhoff Award, and the 2009 CAS Mac
ter design, optimization methods,
Van Valkenburg Award.
and low-sensitivity filter structures
significantly helped the explosive
-Yusuf Leblebici
growth of analog signal processing in

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