IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Spring 2020 - 4

EDITOR'S NOTE

R. Jacob (Jake) Baker

Welcome to the Spring 2020 Issue of
IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine!

This issue of IEEE Solid-State Circuits
Magazine details the contributions
of Klaas Bult, recipient of the 2020
IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in
Solid-State Circuits "for leadership
in embedded analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits." Engineers
who have been designing chips for
decades will recognize the impact
of Klaas Bult's work on the semiconductor industry, especially his work
on embedded analog front ends.
The number of ingenious techniques he and his group invented is
not only very significant; the published results were also extremely
well received. This is especially so
since the vast majority of these publications are based on production
parts, which emphasizes that these
designs were not just research but
rather robust designs or design techniques proven in an industrial production environment. Contributions
are often characterized by simple
circuit techniques, with a very low
transistor count. His "square-law"
circuits (1985) consisted of only two
or three transistors.
The gain-boosting technique has
several implementations, but the
simplest of these shows only three
transistors. The current-division
technique can even be explained
with only two transistors. Although
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2020.2987496
Date of current version: 24 June 2020

S P R I N G 2 0 2 0

of low-noise amplifiers by Leonid
we live in a time when analog CMOS
Belostotski and Sameep Jagtap; 2)
design has matured and many peoan overview of bidirectional bioelecple believe that most basic circuits
tronic interfaces by Yan Liu, Alessanhave been invented already, the basic
dro Urso, Ronaldo Martins da Ponte,
circuit of the highly linear capaciTiago Costa, Virgilio Valente, Vasiliki
tively degenerated dynamic resiGiagka, Wouter A. Serdijn, Timothy
due amplifier consists of only one
G. Constandinou, and Timothy Denitransistor and two capacitors. The
son; and 3) the first part of a review
simplicity of Dr. Bult's designs is not
of the basic principles related to on
only a sign of creativity but also
ex-emplifies his desire and
time-encoding analogability to get to the bottom
to-digital converters
The simplicity of
of design problems.
by Georges Gielen, Luis
Dr. Bult's designs is
T h e s e -c ontributions
Hernandez, and Pieter
not only a sign of
therefore have had a l-asting
Rombouts.
creativity but also
impact on analog designThe goal of the magexemplifies
ers and on analog designs
azine continues to be
his desire and
in general. Many of his
to provide Society news
ability to get to the
inventions are now comand information as well
bottom of design
mon techniques, used
as a series of self-contained
problems.
by many designers
resources to keep the IEEE
in the industry. Guest
Solid-State Circuits Society
Editor Jan Westra has coauthored
member up to date with changes in
an article and recruited other welltechnology, while at the same time
known contributors (Frank van der
providing reviews of circuit design
Goes, Ian Galton, and Henry Samueli)
concepts. These include contributo contribute articles that detail the
tions from experts describing the
award winner's accomplishments.
current state of affairs and evoluIn addition, as usual, several feation of a particular IC technology. We
ture articles, ranging from tutorials
will also continue to feature articles
to technology overviews, on topics
focused on contributions by luminarof interest to IEEE Solid-State Ciries and solid-state circuit techniques
cuits Society Magazine readers are
and directions.
provided. These include the alwaysWe hope you enjoy reading IEEE
popular editorials/tutorials from Ali
Solid-State Circuits Magazine. Please
Sheikholeslami, Behzad Razavi, and
send comments to me at rjacobbaker
Marcel Pelgrom as well as the fol@gmail.com.

lowing feature articles: 1) a survey

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Spring 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Spring 2020