IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Fall 2022 - 75

all trails of more than 10 ski resorts.
After six years of graduate school as
well as several conference and journal
papers,
I graduated from MIT
with the Ph.D. thesis " Energy-Aware
Processor System-on-Chip Design
Using Circuit Reconfigurability " and
with a 4.0/4.0 GPA.
MIT is a place that is about more
than the cool Stata Center building,
chalkboards covered with mathematical
proofs, getting awards, ski
slopes, or groundbreaking discoveries.
It is the people who have an
intellectual curiosity and unyielding
appetite for creating things. My time
at MIT taught me that coming up with
a cool design idea is usually not the
hardest part. The long hours that
are spent in the laboratory designing
around your idea, brainstorming
with team members, simulating, and
testing your design from all possible
corners relentlessly are what make
things happen. Once your chip is back,
seeing the signals toggling is the true
magical experience.
While pursuing my Ph.D. degree,
I always had the desire to jump into
real-world problems of engineering.
How is a product designed and
validated for usage by millions of
people? How are the design decisions
made under the pressure of
certain project deadlines? With that,
I found my way to Apple in 2014. I
worked in the digital circuits group
for seven years. I have written seven
patents and been the lead designer
for several projects, ranging from SRAM
design to custom circuits and onchip
sensors for multiple platforms.
Recently, I started to get the itch to
get even more exposed to microarchitectural
decisions, and I joined
the SoC platform architecture group
a couple of months ago.
My engineering life once started
in the cozy community of Bogazici
with brilliant professors and a small
number of classmates. Now, I am
working at a technology giant with
large engineering teams and diverse
cultures. Although there have been
new technologies and cultures to
learn from, the underlying methodologies
and processes that deliver
electronics have pretty much stayed
the same.
As I have created my road, a few
tent poles have followed me through
all of my postschool experiences-I
find incredible satisfaction in making
" things, " I love interacting with
people, and I always want to be learning.
As engineers, it takes us several
months to build our designs. Then,
many months later, at the launch,
when the new product is flying off
and finally arrives in the hands of
millions of people, this gives me the
biggest satisfaction. That is what
continues to inspire me, is the reason
I come to work every day, and
makes me want to go the extra mile.
Mountains should be climbed
with as little effort as possible and
without desire. The reality of
Yildiz at the Steve Jobs Theater opening.
Yildiz with her husband, Mahmut Ersin
Sinangil, and daughter, Erin Sinangil.
Yildiz at the MIT hooding ceremony with
Prof. Anantha Chandrakasan.
(From left) Andreia Cathelin, Tugce Yazicigil, Ingrid Verbauwhede, Sonia Leon, Alice Wang,
Yildiz, Farhana Sheikh, and Dina El-Damak at the Apple Women in Circuits luncheon.
IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE
FALL 2022
75

IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Fall 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Fall 2022