A team of faculty members and students from the University of Macau’s (UM) State-Key Laboratory (SKLAB) of Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI (AMS-VLSI) presented their research findings at the 65th IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) held from 11 February to 15 February in San Francisco, the United States. Seven papers from UM were accepted at this year’s conference, making the university one of the top six institutions in the world with most papers presented at the 65th ISSCC, among which were Samsung, Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Intel Corporation, Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States. This shows international recognition of UM and the university’s leading position in the field in Asia.

A total of 207 papers were accepted at this year’s conference with an acceptance rate of 33 per cent. Among them 14 are from the Greater China region, with seven from UM, two from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, two from Fudan University, one from Peking University, one from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (Chengdu), and one from Analog Devices Inc (Shanghai). The papers deal with several broad subjects, namely wireless communications, RF circuits, neuromorphic, clocking and security circuits, adaptive circuits and digital regulators, and other analogue circuits for wireless power and energy harvesting. All of these subjects, along with the theme of this year’s conference ‘Silicon Engineering a Social World’, are important topics in the emerging research areas of the Internet of Things.

Yu Weihan, a doctor of microelectronics at UM, received the Pre-doctoral Achievement Award from the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society at the conference, in recognition of his outstanding research in the field. Three other PhD students from the lab were invited to make presentations in the Student Research Previews section. In addition, a team from the SKLAB AMS-VLSI received the prestigious 2017 Takuo Sugano Award for Outstanding Far-East Paper. This is the first time that a team from China has received this award.

Organised by the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society and internationally recognised as the Chip Olympics, the ISSCC is the most prestigious international conference in the field of electronics, with a rigorous paper selection process. It is also the world’s largest and highest-level conference on solid-state circuits, which showcases annually the latest trends in global solid-state circuit research and development. This year’s conference attracted more than 3,000 chip designers from around the world.