PhD Fellowship in Design of Integrated Ultra-linear Digital-to-Analog Converters

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About the position

At the Department of Electronic Systems, we have a vacancy for a PhD candidate with an anticipated start in August 2022, as part of the research project Ultra-linear Digital-to- analogue Conversion (ULDAC) funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

The project aims to develop methods for digital-to-analog conversion enabling a dynamic range in excess of 1 part-per-million (21 effective number of bits), at high speed and with low latency, using advanced control theory and dithering techniques in combination with the latest CMOS fabrication technologies. This level of performance has never been achieved before and will define the new state-of-the-art in the field.

High-resolution digital-to-analogue conversion and control has a wide array of applications, including adaptive optics, semiconductor lithography, fabrication, and inspection, laser interferometry, metrology (measurement science), imaging and manipulation in microbiology, chemistry, materials science, and scanning probe microscopy in general. Furthermore, methods relating to analogue-digital conversion will have major impact in renewable energy production and distribution, communications technology, and other fields.

The group you will be joining has used dithering techniques to build the highest resolution digital-to-analogue converter known in the literature and will serve as the starting point of the current project. The project is a collaboration between the University of Stavanger, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Justervesenet (Norwegian Metrology Service) and Eindhoven University of Technology, as well as The University of Newcastle, Australia.

The objectives for this position are to investigate integrated circuit architectures for ultra-linear digital-to-analog converters (DACs) and to design and implement prototypes in nanoscale CMOS technologies for verification purposes.

All participants in the ULDAC project bring unique and important qualities with them into the doctoral program. The PhD candidate will have the opportunity to collaborate with researchers in the partner institutions and benefit from these collaborative research and education activities.

As part of the ULDAC project team, you will work alongside other highly motivated and talented PhD candidates and researchers. You will also have access to the knowledge base, state-of-the-art research infrastructure, and impact orientation of the partners in the team.

Your immediate manager is the Head of the Department.