News & Events (2015)

MICS held a holiday season dinner party with their families (December 2015)

The MICS group had a dinner party with their families at Owens Hall on December 18, 2015, which is a MICS annual event. MICS people enjoyed an informal gathering with colleagues, friends, and families. Prof. Dong Ha (MICS Director) talked about the achievements of MICS in 2015 and major goals for the new year. Then, each MICS person shared a couple of pictures of his/her hobby. Reza Hiemstra played electronic piano to entertain the people. We wish a Happy New Year to the MICS people and their families!

Michael Cunningham defended an MS thesis and joins industry (December 2015)

Michael Cunningham (advisor: Ha, co-advisor: Koh) successfully defended his MS thesis entitled “A High Temperature Wideband Low Noise Amplifier.” He investigated wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) design, which can operate at an ambient temperature of 230 oC. He prototyped an LNA with a Qurbo’s RF GaN transistor and passive components specialized for high temperature. The LNA can operate reliably up to an ambient temperature of 230 oC using passive cooling rather than active cooling. Measurements show that the proposed LNA can operate reliably up to an ambient temperature of 230 oC with a minimum NF of 2 dB, gain of 16 dB, and P1dB of 19 dBm from 230 MHz to 285 MHz. Michael joined the MICS group after a BS degree from Virginia Tech, and will work for Lockheed Martin in Moorestown, New Jersey, starting January 2016. Michael is the eighths student to graduate since inception of the MICS group in 2012. We wish Michael good luck in his industry career!

Reza Hiemstra defended an MS thesis and joins industry (December 2015)

Reza Hiemstra (advisor: Ha, co-advisor: Koh) successfully defended his MS thesis entitled “A High Temperature Wideband Power Amplifier for a Downhole Communication System.” He investigated power amplifier design, which can operate at an ambient temperature of 230 oC. He prototyped a power amplifier with a Qurbo’s RF GaN transistor and passive components specialized for high temperature. The power amplifier can operate reliably up to an ambient temperature of 230 oC using passive cooling rather than active cooling. At 230°C it operates in class A with peak PAE of 25%, maximum output power of 1.7 W, peak gain of 25 dB, center frequency of 255 MHz with 1dB ripple in the passband over a 60 MHz bandwidth. Reza joined the MICS group after a BS degree from Virginia Tech, and will work for NXP (former Freescale) in Tempe, Arizona, starting February 2016. Reza is the sixths student to graduate since inception of the MICS group in 2012. We wish Reza good luck in his industry career!

Ha was invited for a talk at Zhejiang University, China (November 2015)

Prof. Dehong Xu, Professor and Director of Power Electronics Institute, Zhejiang University, China, invited Prof. Ha for a talk. Prof. Ha visited Zhejiang university on November 16, 2015, and talked about his research on power management IC design for piezoelectric energy harvesting. His talk was well received, and many professors as well as graduate students attended his talk and actively participated during the Q&A session. Prof. Ha took the opportunity to promote research collaboration with Zhejiang University and recruit graduate students. He toured several relevant institutes of Zhejiang University and met students interested in studying in the US. His visit was fruitful, and one postdoctoral scholar of Zhejiang University will join Prof. Ha’s group in early 2016.

MICS hiked on the Appalachian Trail and enjoyed dinner with their families and friends (October 2015)

Over 30 MICS people, their families and friends, enjoyed beautiful fall foliage along the Appalachian Trail and dinner in the evening. They hiked McAfee’s Knob on October 17, which is an annual MICS event.

McAfee’s Knob is one of the most famous knobs along the entire Appalachian Trail, which spans over 3,000 miles. The overlook has a 270 degree panoramic view of the Catawba Valley, and is affectionately known as "the most photographed spot on the Appalachian Trail.” MICS people had dinner at The Homeplace restaurant after the hiking excursion. The Homeplace is the most famous restaurant in the region and serves southern cooking, family style. Prof. Ha concluded the event noting “We work hard, but enjoy life outside of work.”

John Zolper, Vice President of Research and Innovation for Raytheon, visited MICS (October 2015)

Dr. John Zolper, Vice President, Research and Innovation for Raytheon Engineering, Technology and Mission Assurance, visited the MICS group on October 9. The four MICS faculty members (Profs. Ha, Koh, Lester, and Raman) met with him during the visit, and Prof. Ha briefed an overview of the MICS group and research activities. Dr. Zolper then toured the MICS lab and poster displays on RF IC research by the group of Profs. Koh and Raman. Dr. Zolper was very interested in the MICS research. After visiting various major ECE groups, he gave the Bradley Distinguished Lecture, entitled "Technology Leadership for a Safer World", which drew strong interest from students and faculty.

Zhao Gao defended an MS thesis and joins industry (August 2015)

Zhao Gao (advisor: Ha) successfully defended his MS thesis entitled “A Two-mode Buck Converter toward High Efficiency for Entire Load Range for Low Power Applications.” He proposed a buck converter with two modes, a baby-buck mode and a heavy-load mode, in which each mode is optimized for its respective load range to achieve high efficiency throughout the entire load range. His converter design was fabricated in CMOS 0.25 um technology, and his thesis reports measurement results of test chips. Zhao joined the MICS group in August 2013 after a BS degree from Virginia Tech, and will work for Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas, starting September 2015. Zhao is the fifth student to graduate since inception of the MICS group in 2012. We wish Zhao good luck in his industry career!

Laya Mohammadi wins second place award in student paper competition at 2015 IEEE International Microwave Symposium (May 2015)

Laya Mohammadi, a Ph.D. student in the MICS group, has won the second place award in Student Paper Competition at the 2015 IEEE International Microwave Symposium in Phoenix AZ, for her paper entitled “Integrated C-Band (4-8 GHz) Frequency Tunable & Bandwidth Tunable Active Band-Stop Filter in 0.13-m SiGe BiCMOS”.

In the paper, Laya reported an innovative active band reject filter integrated in a cost-effective silicon technology. As many wireless systems, such as Bluetooth, WiFi, 4G LTE, and other cellular devices, must coexist in proximity, mutual interference becomes a significant issue. The demonstrated active filter has both agile frequency tuning and bandwidth tuning capabilities to prevent interference amongst coexisting systems in the fast changing wireless environment.

The IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) is the flagship conference in the IEEE Microwave Theory and Technique Society (MTT-S) with the largest gathering of technical professionals on RF, microwave, millimeter-wave, and THz theory and applications.

Ha awarded with a research project to investigate energy harvesting from roadways (May 2015)

Prof. Ha joins a team of Korean universities and research institutes, which investigates energy harvesting from roadways under the sponsorship of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP). Prof. Ha’s team will develop power management circuits to harvest energy from piezoelectric stacks buried under roadways over the next three years. His team will collaborate closely with Hanyang University (the lead university) in the research, and graduate students from Hanyang University will visit and stay with the MICS group for the collaboration.

MICS hiked to Cascade Falls and enjoyed a cook out (May 2015)

MICS people enjoyed hiking along Little Stony Creek to Cascade Falls on May 2, which has become an annual MICS event near the end of each spring semester. Cascade Falls in Jefferson National Forest is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Virginia and possibly on the entire East Coast. Several streams cascade on the way down while others fall the whole distance of the falls. MICS people cooked out at the state park after the hike. They enjoyed the beauty of sprouting trees and wild flowers of spring as well as foods, drinks, and, equally as important, the relaxed atmosphere.

Thomas O’Connor defended an MS thesis and joins industry (May 2015)

Thomas O’Connor (advisor: Ha & Li) successfully defended his MS thesis entitled “Design of a Power Management Circuit for Vibration Energy Harvesting from Freight Railcars.” His research investigates low power design of a power management circuit (PMC) to extract maximum power from the transducer while protecting the rechargeable battery. His PMC adopts three different operating modes, constant input impedance, output current regulation, and overvoltage shutdown. Thomas joined the MICS group in August 2013 after a BS degree from Virginia Tech, and will work for Aecom in Langley, Virginia, starting July 2015. Thomas is the fourth student to graduate since inception of the MICS group in 2012. We wish Thomas good luck in his industry career!

Farooq Amin awarded Graduate Research STEM Fellowship (May 2015)

MICS Ph.D. student Farooq Amin was awarded Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) Graduate Research STEM Fellowship for the year 2015 - 2016. The fellowship intends to support Frooq’s research project entitled “Silicon based Tunable Filters for Interference and Image Rejection Enabling Software Defined Radios in Space Communications.” This award of $6000 will provide an add-on support to carry out graduate research under supervision of Prof. Koh and Prof. Raman. The purpose of the VSGC Graduate STEM Research Fellowship program is to encourage talented individuals to pursue careers in STEM and support NASA's mission. The awardees are selected from a highly competitive application pool.

Seven MICS graduate students take summer internship (May 2015)

Internship provides a great opportunity to gain real world experiences and to develop industry contacts. It is also helpful for students looking for permanent jobs in industry. The following MICS graduate students are working as summer interns in this summer. 

• Daniel Herrera (Advisor: Lester), Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, "Characterization of Electrode Materials for space-based energy storage"
  
• JI Hoon Hyun (Advisor: Ha), ON-Semiconductor in Santa Clara, California, “PMIC Design”
• Joseph Chong (Advisor: Ha), Freescale in Tempe, Arizona, “RF IC Design”
• Kanika Saini (Advisor: Raman), Amcom Communications in Gaithersburg, Maryland, "Power Amplifier Design"
• Quinn Brogan (Advisor: Ha), Lutron Electronics in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, “DC-DC Power Supply”
• Stephen Hiemstra (Advisor: Ha), Freescale in Tempe, Arizona, “RF IC Design”
• ZiHao Zhang (Advisor: Ha), Texas Instruments in Federal Way, Washington, “RF IC Design”

Shinwoong Park awarded Ph.D. student sponsorship of Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (April 2015)

MICS Ph.D. student Shinwoong Park was awarded a 2015 IEEE MTT-S Ph.D. Student Sponsorship to attend the 2015 IEEE International Microwave Symposium in Phoenix, AZ, 17-22 June. The MTT-S Ph.D. Student Sponsorship Initiative was established by the IEEE MTT-S Administrative Committee to enable 1st and 2nd year Ph.D. students, and Masters students on Ph.D. track, to attend IMS2015/RFIC2015 in Phoenix. See http://ims2015.org/students-main/phd-initiative for more information on this sponsorship program. Congrats to Shinwoong!

Ha receives seed funding for energy harvesting for autonomous underwater vehicles (April 2015)

Prof. Ha receives seed funding for energy harvesting for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) from ICTAS (Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science), Virginia Tech, in collaboration with Prof. Kevin Wang with the Department of Aerospace and Ocean Eng. A major shortcoming of current AUVs is short operation time due to the limited capacity of onboard batteries. They propose to harvest the thermal energy associated with the vertical temperature variation in the ocean thermocline and verify its feasibility over the next two years under the sponsorship.

18 Guests from companies and agencies attended the third MICS Day (March 2015)

The MICS group held its third MICS Day with 18 guests from 14 different companies and agencies on March 10, 2015. The event started with social drinks and dinner the night before, where all the 18 guests and the MICS faculty enjoyed an informal gathering. MICS day was an all-day event that gave an opportunity for the MICS faculty and students to present their research activities and for MICS guests to introduce opportunities and research needs of their companies and agencies.

Dr. Troy Olsson of DARPA delivered a keynote speech regarding RF-FPGAs. All four MICS faculty members and 25 MICS students made oral and poster presentations, respectively, and 12 industry people presented activities of their companies and agencies. MICS Day concluded with a tour of the MICS lab and other ECE labs for the guests. A list of companies that attended MICS day is as follows; Analog Devices, AFRL, AFRL/RV, Army Night Vision Lab, BAE Systems, DARPA, Freescale, Linear Tech, Lockheed Martin, Macom, MaxLinear, NRL, Raytheon, and VPT. MICS day was highly successful, and the guests were impressed with the research achievements of the MICS group. The keynote speaker, Dr. Olsson, noted, “I very much enjoyed my visit and was impressed by the students, research, and the level of industry participation in the MICS group. “

Texas Instruments and ON Semiconductor engineers visited MICS (February 2015)

Dr. Na Kong from Texas Instruments (TI) and Dr. Jinseok Park from ON Semiconductor visited the MICS group on February 24th and 25th, respectively. Both of them met MICS students specializing in PMICs. Dr. Kong talked about TI’s research interests and shared her experiences as a relatively junior engineer while Dr. Park presented research and career opportunities with ON Semiconductor and interviewed a couple of MICS students for summer intern and permanent positions. Dr. Kong graduated from Virginia Tech in 2011 under Prof. Ha’s supervision and was impressed with success of the MICS group. Dr. Park was with the Center for Power Electronics Systems of Virginia Tech during the early phase of his Ph.D. studies. Thanks Drs. Kong and Park. MICS always welcomes your visit.

Prospective graduate students visited the MICS group (February 2015)

The ECE Department invited 43 prospective fall semester graduate students to visit the campus on February 20th and 21st, where 23 students signed up to meet Prof. Ha and tour the MICS lab. Prof. Ha presented an overview and synopsis of the MICS group’s research activities. Many students were interested in MICS research and all of them liked the unofficial MICS motto, “Mix hard work and fun.” A frequent question from the students was, “Does MICS accept new students?” It is apparent that the MICS group is attractive to the prospective students, and we hope to recruit some of them to join our group.

Koh and Raman receive a large DARPA award (February 2015)

Professors K-J Koh and Sanjay Raman have been awarded with a $1 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a more power-efficient millimeter-wave phased array transmitter and receiver architectures and their implementations in integrated circuits in advanced silicon technologies. An additional $0.5M will be provided by DARPA for chip fabrications. The technology can be leveraged for ultra-high resolution radar sensors, high-bandwidth communications data links and imaging arrays. The team will try to solve a vexing challenge: enabling highly efficient, scalable phased arrays that avoid the power load and thermal issues inherent in the current implementations. Congratulations to Prof. Koh and Raman!

Lester is appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics (January 2015)

Professor Luke Lester is appointed as the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics. The journal publishes papers within the broad field of science and technology of quantum electronics including devices, subsystems, and the system-oriented nature. This is a prestigious journal in IEEE Photonics Society and has a 5-year impact factor of 3.465. An EIC position in a top scholarly journal brings high visibility to MICS as well as the ECE Department. Congratulations to Professor Lester!

Cassidy defended an MS thesis and joins industry (January 2015)

Brian Cassidy (advisor: Ha & Li) successfully defended his MS thesis entitled “3-Level Buck Converter for Car Black Box Applications.” His research investigates low power design of a power management circuit for smart cameras by adopting a 3-level buck converter, which was supported by the smart sensor research project. Brian joined the MICS group in August 2013 after a BS degree from Virginia Tech, and will work for Northrop Grumman starting March 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. It is interesting to note Taylor Yeago who graduated a month earlier and Brian follow the same career path. We wish Brian good luck in his industry career.

Ha gave talks at universities and research institutes, Korea (January 2015)

Prof. Ha visited four Korean research institutes including KIMM, KERI, KETI, and ETRI and three universities early January. His visit intended to promote research collaboration in energy harvesting with those institutes and universities. He also gave a talk on power management circuits for piezoelectric energy harvesting at KETI, ETRI, Hanyang University, and Korea University, and his talks were well received.

Ford Motors sponsors Ha’s research on energy harvesting (January 2015)

Ford Motors sponsors Prof. Ha’s research on energy harvesting through CEHMS (Center for Energy Harvesting Materials and Systems) of Virginia Tech, of which Prof. Ha is a member. The project performs a feasibility study and assessment on employing energy harvesting technology to enable self-powered, wireless sensing. Prof. Ha’s team will develop a wireless sensor node powered by energy harvested from automobiles under operation over the next three years and experimentally verify its feasibility.