Author: Cindy Nghe

Student Wins First Place at IEEE HOST

Posted on by Cindy Nghe
Doctoral student Kiruba Subramani recently earned a first place award at the 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware-Oriented Security and Trust (HOST).

Subramani’s “Performance Randomization for Preventing Hardware Trojan Attacks in Analog/RF Circuits” demonstration earned first place in the symposium’s Best Hardware Demonstration Category.

The demo was prepared by Subramani; Dr. Angelos Antonopoulus, a former postdoctoral researcher in electrical engineering; Dr. Aria Nostratinia, professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Dr. Yiorgos Makris, professor of electrical and computer engineering and leader of the Trusted and RELiable Architectures (TRELA) Research Laboratory, of which Subramani is a member.

Dr. Yu Liu, a former member of the TRELA lab, won the same competition in 2016 for his demonstration entitled “Hardware Trojans in Wireless Cryptographic ICs: Silicon Demonstration and Detection Evaluation.”

TxACE STARS: TxACE Workshop on Secure and Trusted Analog/RF Systems

Posted on by Cindy Nghe
The TxACE STARS Workshop format is designed to be highly interactive, featuring not only keynote talks but also panels, informal discussions, student posters, prototype demonstrations and break-out sessions. The outcome of the workshop will be a report authored by the various stakeholders, which can provide guidelines as the hardware security community expands its activities to cover the analog/mixed-signal/RF domain and its applications.
For more information click here.

TxACE Promising Researcher Awards

Posted on by Cindy Nghe
TxACE offers multiple merit based awards to full time students who are interested in pursuing graduate studies in the areas related to the research focus of the center. These are available on a competitive basis from Fall 2018. Depending on the qualifications of the applicants, awards range from $5,000 to $10,000 per year for the first two years of studies. Funds are allocated for the academic year and disbursed on a per-semester basis.
For more information click here.

Engineering Professor Honored for Informal Education Work

Posted on by Cindy Nghe

Dr. Gil Sik Lee, an electrical engineering professor in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, was chosen for an IEEE Educational Activities Board (EAB) Meritorious Achievement Award in Informal Education, which he will receive at the IEEE Meeting Series in Phoenix in November.

Continue reading “Engineering Professor Honored for Informal Education Work” →

Most-Read Article in November JSSC by TxACE Prof Y. Chiu

Posted on by Cindy Nghe

Image: IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits

Abstract:

This paper presents a sub-radix-2 redundant architecture to improve the performance of switched-capacitor successive-approximation-register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). The redundancy not only guarantees digitally correctable static nonlinearities of the converter, it also offers means to combat dynamic errors in the conversion process, and thus, accelerating the speed of the SAR architecture. A perturbation-based digital calibration technique is also described that closely couples with the architecture choice to accomplish simultaneous identification of multiple capacitor mismatch errors of the ADC, enabling the downsizing of all sampling capacitors to save power and silicon area. A 12-bit prototype measured a Nyquist 70.1-dB signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio (SNDR) and a Nyquist 90.3-dB spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) at 22.5 MS/s, while dissipating 3.0-mW power from a 1.2-V supply and occupying 0.06-mm2 silicon area in a 0.13-μm CMOS process. The figure of merit (FoM) of this ADC is 51.3 fJ/step measured at 22.5 MS/s and 36.7 fJ/step at 45 MS/s.
Read more…

Annual TxACE Symposium is on October 16, 2017

Posted on by Cindy Nghe

Davidson Auditorium, The University of Texas at Dallas

 

As electronics continue to bridge the gap between the analog real world and digital information infrastructure, the entire $350 billion per year integrated circuits industry is evolving into an analog-digital mixed signal industry. This one-day symposium will examine trends, emerging opportunities and key challenges in analog integrated circuits and systems, as well as related technologies.

The list of speakers will include:
Hans Stork — Senior Vice President and CTO of ON Semiconductor
Alessandro Piovaccari — Senior Vice President of Engineering and CTO, Silicon Labs
Brian La Cour — Director, Center for Quantum Research, ARL, UT Austin
Mike Flynn — Professor, U Michigan, Leader of Fund. Analog Thrust, TxACE
Yiorgos Makris — Professor, UT Dallas
Fredrick A. Jenet — Associate Professor of Physics, UT Rio Grande Valley
Adrian Tang — Strategic Researcher, UCLA and NASA JPL

The symposium will feature presentations by leading analog researchers, a lunch program, and poster and demonstration sessions featuring TxACE research.

Download this year’s agenda. PDF Icon

TI collaborates with University of Texas at Dallas to improve wafer production efficiency – applying big data approaches to test data

Posted on by Cindy Nghe

The two worked together several times a year on exchanging research and results before Makris joined the University of Texas at Dallas faculty as an associate professor in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. That’s when they began to collaborate more frequently. “As we were demonstrating the new methods we were creating, we had to explore,” Makris says.

The basic premise of the research is that sampled test data from a few die locations on a wafer could determine whether all of the sites on the wafer are good or bad. This would make it possible to test far fewer die locations yet make an educated and accurate guess on the rest of the batch — dramatically reducing wafer test time. […]

Read the full article at the Texas Instruments Think.Innovate Blog.

Samsung Demos a Tablet Controlled by Your Brain

Posted on by Cindy Nghe

An easy-to-use EEG cap could expand the number of ways to interact with your mobile devices.

One day, we may be able to check e-mail or call a friend without ever touching a screen or even speaking to a disembodied helper. Samsung is researching how to bring mind control to its mobile devices with the hope of developing ways for people with mobility impairments to connect to the world. The ultimate goal of the project, say researchers in the company’s Emerging Technology Lab, is to broaden the ways in which all people can interact with devices.

In collaboration with Roozbeh Jafari, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas, Dallas, Samsung researchers are testing how people can use their thoughts to launch an application, select a contact, select a song from a playlist, or power up or down a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. While Samsung has no immediate plans to offer a brain-controlled phone, the early-stage research, which involves a cap studded with EEG-monitoring electrodes, shows how a brain-computer interface could help people with mobility issues complete tasks that would otherwise be impossible. […]

Read the full article at MIT Technology Review.

New TxACE Logo

Posted on by Cindy Nghe

TxACE has a new logo thanks to the creative talents of Sankalp Modi.

A PhD student in electrical engineering, Modi won the contest held to design a TxACE logo.

Of the dozens of submissions from faculty, students and staff, Modi’s stood out from the rest in the eyes of the four-judge panel assembled to sort through the submissions.

Containing visual references to both digital and analog technology, the logo is also simple and distinctive enough to be quickly recognizable, the judges decided.

Modi received a $50 gift certificate for his efforts.