POSTECH Electrical Engineering students shine with four papers presented at the world's leading conference.
POSTECH EE graduate students attracted attention by presenting four papers at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), held in San Francisco in February. Often called the Olympics of semiconductor design, the conference featured about 200 papers across 29 sessions, with three to ten papers per session. Most presenters were researchers associated with global companies such as IBM, Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics; university researchers and students represented only a small share. Strict paper evaluation makes selection an honor in itself.
Ji-Yong Um (31, PhD) presented in Biomedical Systems, Hyun-Soo Ha (28, integrated program) in Sensors–MEMS–Displays, and Dong-Hoon Baek (36, master's) and Seung-Ho Han (24, integrated program) in High-Speed Wireline. Each session selected only three to ten papers worldwide.
Um presented receiver beamformer chip design technology enabling three-dimensional ultrasound medical imaging. Baek proposed an approach for displays that improves speed and power efficiency over existing circuits while reducing frequency interference. Ha developed a capacitance-to-digital converter for pressure, humidity and acceleration sensors, presenting a drive technique improving speed and power efficiency while reducing frequency interference. Han presented an approach to reduce performance degradation in high-speed communication circuits caused by semiconductor process uncertainty. All received positive responses. Han drew particular attention for presenting at ISSCC just one year after entering graduate school.
Their advisers were Professors Hong June Park, Jae-Yoon Sim and Byungsub Kim. Park said it was highly encouraging for four students from a department as small as POSTECH EE to present at the semiconductor-design Olympics. He attributed the emerging results to the three professors' shared laboratory, centrally located measurement equipment, and technical seminars held every two weeks with all their graduate students.
Park received the Haedong Academic Award in 2012 for contributions to electronics, information and communications. At ISSCC's 60th-anniversary celebration in 2013, Sim received an Author-Recognition Award for publishing at least ten papers over the preceding decade. Kim received the 2009 best paper award from the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), a leading journal in semiconductor design.
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