John McNeill Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Deep Submicron CMOS and the New Era of Creativity in Analog Design

Analog and mixed signal IC designers frequently see themselves as artists -- and like any artist, the analog designer uses whatever style, medium, and tools that are best suited to the problem at hand. Deep submicron CMOS is just another tool for the analog designer to use. The capability of small inexpensive digital circuitry and the prospects of increased circuit variability are not threats to analog design, but actually open new avenues for creativity.

In this talk, the theme of "old" and "new" analog CMOS design will be explored with examples drawn from mixed signal circuit designs in the area of data conversion.

Bio:

John McNeill was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1961. He received the A.B. from Dartmouth College in 1983, the M.S. from the University of Rochester in 1991, and the Ph.D. from Boston University in 1994. From 1983 to 1990 he worked in industry in the design of high speed, high resolution analog-to-digital converters and low noise interface electronics used in high speed, wide dynamic range imaging systems. In 1994, he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering department of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he now is an Associate Professor. Since 1998, he has been director of the New England Center for Analog and Mixed Signal Integrated Circuit Design (NECAMSID) at WPI, a consortium of industry sponsors supporting undergraduate projects and graduate research in the area of analog and mixed signal integrated circuit design. He received an NSF CAREER Grant in 1997, the WPI Trustees' Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1999, and this past February he received the award for Best Paper at the 2005 ISSCC.