ISSCC 2013: Combining old with new

MANHASSET, N.Y. -- The venerable International Solid-State Circuits Conference this February will make the most of commemorating its three-score history by digging for past innovations in its “innovations attic” which  are still pertinent today.

At the same time, ISSCC organizers also want to look ahead by offering its young ones tips on getting a circuit designer’s job.

Trudy Stetzler, distinguished member of the technical staff at Texas Instruments and ISSCC 2013 program vice-chair, has organized a panel of six experts from academia and industry to dig into their memories and find lost treasures in circuit design.

The panel promises surprises from the past sixty years as panelists explain why the concepts are significant today and should be pulled from the “innovation attic”. As the preliminary program states: “When you clean up your attic you may find things that you have totally forgotten about: old toys you used to play with, old books with lost stories. And then you think back to those past days and view them in the context of today’s busy life.”

The six panelists include Robert Brodersen, University of California, Berkeley, CA; Rinaldo Castello, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy; Yoshiaki Daimon Hagihara, Sojo University, Kumamoto, Japan; Thomas Lee, Microsystems Technology Office, DARPA, Arlington, VA; Nicky Lu, Etron Technology, Hsinchu, Taiwan; and Eric Vittoz, Independent Consultant, Cernier, Switzerland.

Brodersen exemplifies the panelists’ criteria for having surprises in their innovation attic. He was co-recipient, with P. Gray and D. Hodges, of the 1983 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award for "pioneering contributions and leadership in research on switched-capacitor circuits for analog-digital conversion and filtering." He also was the recipient of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Award for "contributions to the design of integrated circuits for signal processing systems." He was a recipient of an IEEE Millennium Medal, as well as the Circuits and Systems Society's Golden Jubilee Award. In 2003, he was honored as one of the top ten contributors over the last 50 years to the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Prof. Brodersen is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering.

On the futuristic side an evening session dubbed “You’re Hired - The Top 25 Interview Questions for Circuit Designers” should shed light on what young engineers can expect when applying for a job these days.

The organizer from academia is Michael P. Flynn, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and from the industry is John Khoury, Silicon Labs, Austin, TX. Their motivations for the panel is the following: Circuit designers have to survive one or many technical interviews before being hired for their dream job. Many students and practicing engineers feel confident that they have a strong and intuitive understanding of circuits. However, even the best circuit designers can be stumped by exotic circuits or through a misunderstanding of fundamental concepts."
 
They have assembled  a panel of industry and academic circuit designers to challenge, and entertain, the audience and each other with questions that often arise during job interviews. The audience will be able to  judge which interview questions are fair game in the pursuit of the highly coveted mixed-signal integrated circuit job.

Panelists include Eric Swanson, Cirrus Logic, Austin, TX; Sanroku Tsukamoto, Fujitsu Laboratories, Kawasaki, Japan; Marcel Pelgrom, Consultant, Helmond, The Netherlands; Beomsup Kim, Qualcomm, Santa Clara, CA; Ali Hajimiri, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA; and Behzad Razavi, University of California, Los Angeles, CA.

ISSCC will be being held in San Francisco, February 17-21.