SSCS Hong Kong Chapter Hosts a Workshop on High Performance Wireline and Optical Communication Transceiver SoC Design

- Khawaja Qasim Maqbool, Chair, IEEE SSCS Hong Kong Student Chapter
- Prof. C. Patrick Yue, Advisor, IEEE SSCS Hong Kong Student Chapter

The IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Hong Kong student chapter organized a 2-day workshop, “High Performance Wireline and Optical Communication Transceiver SoC Design,” on 18-19 August 2017 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong. The workshop focused on the latest trends and challenges in wireline and optical communication transceiver SoC design. A crowd of more than 30 attendees, including research postgraduate students from HKUST, University of Macau, and 10 representatives of industry from eTopus Technology, Brite Semiconductor, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) were in attendance. The workshop featured SSCS Distinguished Lecturers (DL) Prof. Sam Palermo, Texas A&M University; Dr. Hirotaka Tamura, Fujitsu Laboratories and IEEE fellow; and Prof. C. Patrick Yue, HKUST, and IEEE fellow; and Prof. Jri Lee, National Taiwan University.

Prof. C. Patrick Yue, professor and director of the optical wireless lab (OWL) and HKUST-Qualcomm Lab, HKUST, gave the welcoming remarks and introduced the first distinguished lecturer, Prof. Sam Palermo, professor at Texas A&M University. Prof. Palermo gave the opening talk, focusing on advanced modeling and design of high-performance ADC-based serial links. He discussed the statistical modeling framework, low-power >10GS/s ADC designs, and novel receiver architectures which leverage partial analog equalization embedded in the ADC. Prof. Yue then introduced the second distinguished lecturer, Dr. Hirotaka Tamura from Fujitsu Laboratories. Dr. Tamura presented his industrial point of view on the future of chip-to-chip communications technology. He also discussed the roles of high-bandwidth I/Os for the future ICT systems, with reviewing the implication of CMOS scaling on the I/O performance.

On the second day, Dr. Salahuddin Raju, post-doctoral student at HKUST, introduced the invited speaker, Prof. Jri Lee from National Taiwan University. He gave an interesting talk on advanced clock and data recovery circuits for high-speed wireline systems. Prof. Yue gave the closing talk of the workshop on recent developments in transceiver SoC design for next generation optical networks. He presented a 4-Gb/s fiber-to-mm-wave baseband-over-fiber (BoF) modulator SoC using 65-nm CMOS with a fully integrated 850-nm wavelength optical receiver front-end for short-range backhaul. He also described the design considerations for an improved 10-Gb/s BoF I/Q modulator SoC with integrated mm-wave power amplifier.

The four speakers interacted with the students and other attendees during the two-day event. The lectures were followed by the Q&A sessions and a panel discussion.

Figure 1 - IEEE SSCS Hong Kong student chapter (HKSC) 2-day workshop speakers, from left to right: Prof. C. Patrick Yue, Advisor - IEEE SSCS HKSC; Prof. Sam Palermo, Texas A&M University; Dr. Hirotaka Tamura, Fujitsu Laboratories; and Prof. Jri Lee, National Taiwan University.

Figure 2 – Prof. Sam Palermo shared his research on advanced modeling and design of high-performance ADC-based serial links.

Figure 3 - Dr. Hirotaka Tamura took questions from the workshop participants.

Figure 4 - Prof. Jri Lee presented a comprehensive overview of advanced clock and data recovery circuits for high-speed wireline systems.

Figure 5 – Prof. C. Patrick Yue described the design considerations for a 10-Gb/s Baseband-over-Fiber (BoF) I/Q modulator SoC with integrated mm-wave power amplifier.

Figure 6 - Students and professionals gathered for the IEEE SSCS Hong Kong student chapter 2-day workshop.

Figure 7 – A dinner gathering of workshop speakers with IEEE SSCS Hong Kong student chapter (HKSC) committee members. Pictured, from left to right: K. Q. Maqbool, Chair - IEEE SSCS HKSC; Wang Li, Member – HKSC; Duona Luo, Publicity head - HKSC; Salahuddin Raju, Co-chair – HKSC; Prof. C. Patrick Yue, Advisor - HKSC; Dr. Hirotaka Tamura; Prof. Jri Lee; Prof. Sam Palermo; Guang Zhu, Treasurer- HKSC; Liusheng Sun, Member - HKSC; and Babar Hussain, Member - HKSC.