Wireless Communication ICs

In this program, we have developed next-generation wireless IC solutions for WPAN, WBAN, and WSN. The wireless communication ICs have to address several important challenges, such as low power consumption while maintaining multichannel communication capability, compliance with standards and regulations, high data rate with well-limited bandwidth occupation (for imaging and array recording applications), symmetric transceivers (for peer-to-peer communication as needed by WSN), coexistence with other ratios, and sub-GHz wideband communication (for in-body high-data-rate applications). New techniques have been developed and introduced at various levels of the design hierarchy, including transceiver architectures, modulation/demodulation schemes, circuit designs of receiver and transmitter front-ends, frequency synthesis, and baseband circuits.

Wireless Transmitter ICs

My research group has focused on low-power, high-data-rate, wireless transmitter IC design for biomedical applications, which require transmitting high-resolution images with a high frame rate (i.e., capsule endoscopy) or a large amount of data from a large number of sensors (i.e., implantable neural recording).

Wireless Receiver ICs

We have mainly worked on low-power receiver ICs used for biomedical and IoT applications. We design innovative RF and baseband circuits optimized for energy efficiency, sensitivity, and compact integration. Key areas include front-end architectures, wake-up receivers, and multi-standard demodulation techniques.

Body Channel Communication ICs

For WBAN, body channel communication is an excellent alternative to conventional wireless communication through the air to obviate the need for high-power transceivers and bulky antennas. 

Acoustic Telemetry ICs 

The oil and gas industry has constantly been searching for a faster wireless data link for downhole data communication. It is challenging to design down-hole communication for oil and gas well drilling due to high temperature and drilling noise. Conventional mud pulse and electromagnetic telemetry can only achieve 10 b/s. While acoustic telemetry through drill pipes shows potential for a higher data rate, current discrete solutions with only two carriers have a limited data rate of 40 b/s