mmWave circuit design PhD student

The Louvain School of Engineering is seeking a mmWave circuit design PhD student (4 years) to work on Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology development for future > 100 GHz applications.

As CMOS technologies have now scaled down to well below 50 nm they have become suitable candidates for millimetre wave applications. Of particular interest is the RF SOI technology, which can offer highly resistive substrates and lower RF device losses in combination with CMOS integration capabilities. SOI CMOS transistor cut-off frequencies now easily reach 400 GHz, and RF SOI transceivers operating at frequencies beyond 100 GHz have now been demonstrated.

The Louvain School of Engineering has been pioneering and promoting the use of RF SOI for high frequency applications for over 30 years, and has accumulated decades of experience in the field. We are now recruiting a highly motivated and interested candidate to help us with our investigation towards the use of RF SOI for applications well beyond 100 GHz, such as future short-range telecommunication systems and radars. The work will focus on passive (transmission lines, inductors, transformers, baluns, …) and active (various MOSFETs with CPW accesses) devices as well as active front end circuit (LNA, PA, mixer, VCO, phase shifter, …) designs.

Key responsibilities include:

• Design of optimized RF SOI mm-wave devices and circuits for >100 GHz applications on state-of-the art RF SOI technologies (22, 28, 45 nm nodes);
• Wideband characterization (S-parameters, non-linearities, …) and modelling of SOI passive and active devices;
• On-wafer small- and large-signal measurements of advanced SOI devices and circuits;
• Collaborating with device and reliability engineers and researchers working at Incize, eV-Technologies, SOITEC, CEA-Leti, ST-Microelectronics, and GlobalFoundries.

Position requirements

• Master with SOI device and high frequency analysis experience;
• Familiarity with the use of high frequency EM solvers (HFSS, CST, …);
• Familiarity with vector-network analyzer on-wafer measurement techniques;
• Understanding of broadband high-frequency and analog device figures of merit;
• Good communication skills and ability to work across functional teams of device, electrical characterization, reliability and layout.

Hosting lab information

The student will be hosted by the RF SOI Group of the Louvain School of Engineering. Under the guidance of Prof. J.-P. Raskin, the group has pioneered the widespread use of SOI for RF and microwave applications by establishing a clear path to transform lossy SOI substrates into quasi-lossless material. Thanks to those developments SOITEC’s eSI™ RF-SOI substrate has been able to displace III-V on the mobile handset RF switch market and at present almost all new smartphones have RF-SOI inside.

Prof. D. Lederer joined the Louvain School of Engineering in September 2020 to work on THz technologies. He also joined the RF SOI Group to explore how the boundaries of RF SOI can be pushed towards > 100 GHz applications.