Abstract: Learning integrated circuit design requires gaining a broad range of skills and knowledge including circuit analysis & design, signals & systems, applied electro-magnetics, and semiconductor physics. Learning theory has always been most accessible through books or now the internet. Simulation tools are now also widely available on personal computers, including open-source versions. But, learning measurements so far has been mostly confined to school or industry laboratories. Yet, physical intuition and practical experience keeps playing a significant role in the development of successful, high performance integrated circuits. We will present the MOSbius platform that allows a student or designer to experiment with IC-style, analog, CMOS circuits at the lunch table. This unique platform uses a custom chip with CMOS building blocks that can be wired on a breadboard or with a programmable on-chip switch matrix. Measurements can be conducted using an affordable, all-in-one, USB lab instrument. Ready-to-go experiments are provided to learners and instructors on https://mosbius.org. Nothing can substitute for the aha moment when you observe a circuit finally working. The debugging process to bring-up the circuit teaches the designer essential lessons that carry over to high performance circuits in highly scaled technologies. The MOSbius platform aims to make lab experience widely accessible and affordable to learners.
Peter Kinget is the Bernard J. Lechner Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia University in New York. His research group focusses on the design of analog and RF integrated circuits and the novel systems or applications they enable in communications, sensing, computing, and power management. He also devotes a lot of his energy to teaching initiatives like https://mosbius.org and https://vlsidesignlab.org
He received his engineering and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven (Belgium). He has worked in industrial research and development at Bell Laboratories, Broadcom, Celight and Multilink before joining the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, NY in 2002. He served as Department Chair from 2017 to 2020. He is also a consulting expert on patent litigation and a technical consultant to industry.
Peter is a Fellow of the IEEE and is widely published. He received several awards including the “IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society 2020 Innovative Education Award” and the “2011 IEEE Communications Society Award for Advances in Communication” (for an outstanding paper in any IEEE Communications Society publication in the past 15 years). He is a “Distinguished Lecturer” for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS), and has been an Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits (2003-2007) and the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II (2008-2009). He has served on the program committees of many of the major solid-state circuits conferences and has been an elected member of the IEEE SSCS Adcom (2011-2013 & 2014-2016).