Seminars and Events

CA DREAMS - Technical Seminar Series

Future System-on-Chip for Full Spectrum Utilization from RF to Optics

Event Details

The ever-increasing bandwidth requirement due to explosively growing 5/6G and AIoT data flows has compelled global commission authorities to release EM-spectra up to millimeter-wave (30-300GHz) and even (sub)-millimeter-wave frequency regimes (>300GHz) for massively expanded sensing and network applications. In this talk, we will exemplify novel CMOS-embedded technologies and methodologies developed at UCLA to enable System-on-Chip (SoC) realizations for multi-broadband radio, wideband radar, contactless/plastic interconnect, 3D-imaging and gas-phase rotational spectrometry at (sub)-mm-Wave frequencies.

We will also address challenges encountered in both design and implementations that may hinder further development of such systems, especially the major shortcomings in silicon technologies with limited dynamic range and power handling capabilities. We therefore propose replacing CMOS n-FET’s drain with selectively grown wide bandgap cubic-phase GaN (c-GaN) for >10X improved breakdown voltages to secure desired sensing/communication range/coverage with cost-effectiveness.

Additionally, we will elaborate on the possible growth of multi-wavelength light-emitting sources and detectors directly atop n-FinFET’s c-GaN Drain with various indium contents of InGaN/GaN super-lattice for RF-optical combined radio/radar/interconnect applications by creating unprecedented “Photonic System-on-Chip” with full EM-spectrum utilization from RF to optics.

February 7, 2025

Join Zoom Meeting

https://usc.zoom.us/j/97017422125?pwd=Dbrt8MNMrmBV3xalKQJcAiNsggFJjJ.1&from=addon
Meeting ID: 970 1742 2125
Passcode: 937624

Host: Steve Crago
POC: Amy Kasmir

Speaker Bio

Dr. M.C. Frank Chang is the Wintek Chair in Electrical Engineering and Distinguished Professor of UCLA. Throughout his career, he has focused on the research & development of high-speed semiconductor devices and integrated circuits for radio, radar, imager, spectrometer, and AIoT System-on-Chip applications. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, the European Academy of Science and Arts, and an academician of Academia Sinica, Taiwan. He also received the IEEE David Sarnoff Award (2006), IET JJ Thomson Medal for Electronics (2017), IEEE/RSE (Royal Society Edinburgh) James Clerk Maxwell Medal (2023), and AASF’s Asian American Pioneer Medal (2024) for his seminal contributions to heterojunction technology and realizations of (sub)-mm-Wave System-on-Chip with unprecedented bandwidth and re-configurability. He also took a leave of absence from UCLA during 2015-2019 to serve as the President of National Chiao Tung University, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. He earned his B.S. in Physics from the National Taiwan University (1972), his M.S. in Material Science from the National Tsing Hua University (1974), and his Ph.D. in Electronics from the National Chiao Tung University (1979).