IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine - Spring 2016 - 103

engineer at Cypress Semiconductor,
Cork, Ireland.
The four-day course covered key analog/mixed signal building blocks including amplifiers, operational transconductance amplifiers, comparators,
sample and hold, analog-to-digital
converters, data-to-analog converters,

bandgap current/voltage references,
and frequency synthesizers. The intensive program consisted of a combination of daily lectures as well as
simulation and layout exercises using
industry-standard CAD tools.
The training was organized in collaboration with Microelectronics Indus-

try Design Association (MIDAS) Ireland
(http://www.midasireland.ie/).

-Peter Kennedy
SSCS Chapter Chair,
United Kingdom and
Ireland Chapter

IEEE SSCS-Benelux Holds Chip Design Competition for Students

The Benelux area is strong in microfilled out by the students highlightelectronics. Several top universities,
ing their idea, novelty, and measured
research centers, and companies in
performance. This is very similar to
the region regularly contribute to
the Student Research Preview subexcellent publications at IEEE conmissions at the International Solidferences and journals. Nevertheless,
State Circuits Conference.
the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society
In total, 17 students from various
(SSCS) Benelux Chapter noted that
universities (TU Eindhoven, TU Delft,
not too many bachelor's, master's,
TU Twente, KU Leuven, VUB, and
or Ph.D. students know about SSCS.
UGent) submitted a working chip. Ten
Often, they have no idea the leading
of these students were from Belgium,
role that Benelux takes
and seven were from
in the microelectronThe Netherlands. This
ics business.
is quite an impressive
In total,
To acknowledge the
number, and it was
17 students
expertise in the area
amazing to see the
from various
and to bring the SSCS
high quality and broad
universities
activities to the attenscope of the research
submitted a
tion of students, the
that takes place in the
working chip.
SSCS-Benelux Chapter
Benelux area. The rankorganized a chip design
ing of the submissions
competition in the fall of 2015. Stuwas done by an expert panel that condents participated by submitting a
sisted of the promoters (professors) of
working and measured chip that was
each submission. This approach endesigned or published during the
sured that there was a broad expertise
2015 academic year. The submission
for fair rankings. Based on the scores
process was kept to a bare minimum,
of the nine panel members, the first,
and a template slide set was to be
second, and third places received a
prize, consisting of a cash award and
a travel grant to attend the 2016 EuDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2016.2546699
Date of publication: 21 June 2016
ropean Solid-State Circuits Conference

(ESSCIRC) or the 2016 Advances in Analog Circuit Design Workshop (AACD).
The results of the competition
are as follows:
■ first prize (€750 and a travel grant,
up to €1,000, to attend ESSCIRC 2016
or AACD 2016)
* Dirk-Jan van den Broek, TU Twente,
"An Integrated Front-End for InBand Full-Duplex Wireless"
* promoter: Prof. Bram Nauta
■ second prize (€500 and a travel grant,
up to €1,000, to attend ESSCIRC 2016
or AACD 2016)
* Niels Van Thienen, KU Leuven,
"An FSK Plastic Waveguide Communication Link in 40-nm CMOS"
* promoter: Prof. Patrick Reynaert
■ third prize (€250)
* Hui Jiang, TU Delft, "Ring-DownBased Readout Circuit for Resonant Sensors"
* promoter: Prof. Michiel Pertijs.
The winners of the competition were
officially announced on 8 June 2016,
when the SSCS-Benelux Chapter held
its annual workshop in Twente, The
Netherlands.
-Patrick Reynart
Chapter Chair, SSCS-Benelux

IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE

s p r i n g 2 0 16

103

http://www.midasireland.ie/

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