IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Spring 2020 - 107

First Ever SSCS Student Video Contest

The 2019-2020 IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) International
Student Video Contest had students' creative juices flowing. The
contest , w h ic h w a s op e n on ly
to students, tasked them to create
a fun and short v ideo explaining circuits aimed at high school
students. Contest submitters used
drawings, cartoons, and analogies
to create circuits topics for realworld applications.
The winners of the 2019-2020
contest and their descriptions of
their videos follow.
■■ Pushkar Pramod Wani and Sagar
Raj N, "Basics for Filters": "The
origin for any electronic circuit
is very important for students to
know. The topic that we have chosen is filters, and it is important
for students to learn that there
are different domains (for example, mathematics and signal processing) that combine together to
form a domain called analog elecDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2020.2987245
Date of current version: 24 June 2020

Contest submitters
used drawings,
cartoons, and
analogies to create
circuits topics
for real-world
applications.

■■

tronics. Our aim is to make students understand that forming
circuits is not just connections of
resistors and capacitors. There is
a broad history that helps one to
arrive at the final result."
Jelle Bakker and Jeroen Ponte,
"Stepwise Explanation of SAR
ADCs Using Analogies": "Our video starts from basic principles
expected to be comprehended by
a high school student audience.
Through (physical) analogies, the
concept of successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) is explained.
A relevant and relatable example
application is given. We hope the
demonstrated general relevance
of ADCs, comprehensible insight

into the workings of specifically
SAR ADCs, and the given relevant
example application will generate
interest in circuit design among
high school students."
■ ■ Xinjian Liu, "Piezo Energy Harvester ": "This video used many
examples that high school-aged
students are familiar with. The
video used stick-figure style to
explain the circuit, which makes
the video more interesting. The
structure of the video is very
clear. It has four steps and teaches students how to design a circuit step by step. A lot of metaphors are used to explain the
components used in the circuits.
Possible applications and the
relationship between this circuit
and human life are mentioned in
the video."
All of the video contest entries
can be found on the SSCS YouTube
channel in this playlist: https://www
.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvYonH
CKSWah1UBqqiD0zCsx4QsimGSGT.
-Abira Altvater

Women in Circuits Luncheon at Western Digital

A Women in Circuits (WiC) luncheon
w a s h e ld at Weste r n D ig it a l i n
San Jose, California, on 20 February 2020. Yan Li, vice president of
Design Engineering, Western Digital, hosted the luncheon. The event
was held in conjunction was the
International Solid-State Circuits
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2020.2987246
Date of current version: 24 June 2020

Conference 2020. Li was motivated
to bring exposure of the WiC Committee to women engineers in the
silicon technology and manufacture (STM) field. STM has a significant number of women engineers
(about 30%). In addition to very busy
day jobs, many of these women have
the heavy responsibility of family
and kids. Instead of inviting famous
and established people to share

their careers, L i inv ited young
rising stars in their midcareers and
more seasoned engineers to share
their experiences.
The current chair of the IEEE
Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS)
WiC Committee, Kathy Wilcox from
AMD, presented SSCS WiC events
and activities. These events in--
cluded networking events at SSCS
con fe r e n ces a n d eve nt s i n t h e

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

S P R I N G 2 0 2 0

107

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvYonHCKSWah1UBqqiD0zCsx4QsimGSGT https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvYonHCKSWah1UBqqiD0zCsx4QsimGSGT https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvYonHCKSWah1UBqqiD0zCsx4QsimGSGT

IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Spring 2020

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