Dr.

Jeffrey Walling
Electrical & Computer Engineering University of Utah October 22 WEB 1250 3:05 p.m.

Switched Capacitor Power Amplifiers

ABSTRACT:
CMOS is used nearly ubiquitously for digital computation, and as such plays an ever increasing role in our lives as we increasingly use computation to improve working efficiency. Increasing levels of integration have made it possible to embed both a digital processing with analog and RF circuits on the same integrated circuit, to realize wireless systems-on-a-chip. The exception has been the CMOS RF power amplifier, owing to its relatively poor performance (e.g., peak output power and energy efficiency) when compared to other semiconductor technologies. In this talk I will introduce the switched capacitor power amplifier, which leverages CMOS inherent strengths of fast switching speeds and superior lithographic matching to yield a linear, efficient digital power amplifier. Further, I will introduce a dual supply version of this PA that enhances the efficiency even further. These PAs represent a major breakthrough towards complete integration of wireless SoCs.

Biography of Jeffrey Walling Dr. Walling received the B.S. degree from the University of South Florida, Tampa, in 2000, and the M.S. and Ph. D. degrees from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 2005 and 2008, respectively. Prior to starting his graduate education he was employed at Motorola, Plantation, FL working in cellular handset development. He interned for Intel, Hillsboro from 2006-2007, where he worked on highly-digital transmitter architectures and CMOS power amplifiers and continued this research while a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the University of Washington. After one year as an assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, he came to his senses and joined the ECE department at University of Utah. His current research interests include low-power wireless circuits, energy scavenging, high-efficiency transmitter architectures and CMOS power amplifier design for software defined radio. Dr. Walling has authored over 30 articles in peer reviewed journals and refereed conferences. Recently he received the Best Paper Award at Mobicom 2012. He has also received the Yang Award for outstanding graduate research from the University of Washington, Department of Electrical Engineering in 2008, an Intel Predoctoral Fellowship in 2007-2008, and the Analog Devices Outstanding Student Designer Award in 2006.

The public is invited