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ASIC Design

All transceiver electronic circuits will be integrated to optimize communication and signal processing performance using system-on-a-chip (SoC) integrated circuit (IC) design and implementation based on our expertise in silicon-based IC design and verification. Various electronics will perform opto-electronic (OE) signal conversion, filtering, low noise signal and power amplification, analog/digital conversion, and DSP, all integrated with electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuitry to enhance reliability of such a micro-system in real environmental dynamics. During this process, the IC circuits will be designed and optimized first in mainstream 0.13µm CMOS technology for high-performance, low-cost, and full system integration. Then a microelectronics microsystem will be built up on a printed circuit board and an IC chip for the critical circuitry will be designed to achieve various electronic signal processing. Each chip will be embedded by 4kV ESD protection circuitry against potential accidental damages. Those designed IC chips will be fabricated in one of the most advanced IC foundries via an existing collaboration agreement with UCR. The DSP unit will use field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) initially and will be customer-designed as an ASIC IC later on for system optimization.