Three UNIST Papers Accepted at the 'Semiconductor Design Olympics'... Second Most in South Korea

Circuit of the chip for improving the reliability of the multi-level converter.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Hwang Dooyul] Three papers from UNIST were accepted at the "International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2023," known as the "Olympics of Semiconductor Design."

ISSCC is one of the world's top three semiconductor conferences, having started in 1954 and approaching its 70th annual event. At this event, over 3,000 researchers from around the world gather to share research achievements and information and discuss the future of the semiconductor industry and technology.

According to the recently held "ISSCC 2023 Korea Conference," a total of 198 papers were presented at this ISSCC conference, of which 32 were from Korea. UNIST contributed three papers, making it the second-highest number of papers from a domestic university.

UNIST's papers came from two research teams: two papers from Professor Shin Se-woon’s team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and one paper from Professor Kim Jae-joon’s team.

Professor Shin Se-woon’s team had two papers accepted out of eight in the field of Power Management Integrated Circuits (PMIC), and they were the only Korean research team to have papers accepted in this field.

Professor Shin’s team presented one semiconductor circuit design that enables more efficient power management for mobile devices and another semiconductor circuit design for a "piezoelectric power generation device" that generates electricity using pressing force.

The first paper effectively converts battery voltage to increase energy efficiency and processing speed.

Seungjoo Lee, first author and integrated MS-PhD researcher in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at UNIST, explained, "The structure of converters, which are voltage conversion devices used in existing mobile devices, is very simple, making it difficult to improve energy efficiency and processing speed. The semiconductor circuit we proposed introduces a completely different structure that enhances stability."

The second paper introduced a semiconductor circuit design that regularly divides the process of transmitting alternating current obtained from pressure to reduce energy loss.

Yeonwoo Jung, first author and researcher in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at UNIST, said, "Compared to commercialized piezoelectric energy harvesting chips, our design achieves an 11.7-fold increase in energy extraction with a volume more than 10 times smaller. It is a semiconductor circuit that improves power, size, and cost competitiveness all at once."

Professor Kim Jae-joon’s team, in collaboration with Professor Jang Dong-pyo’s team from Hanyang University and SoSo, proposed semiconductor circuit and system design technology applicable in the smart healthcare field.

The system proposed by the research team can monitor brain waves, stress, blood pressure, and heart rate simply by being worn behind the user's ear, while simultaneously supporting electrical stimulation.

Hyunjung Kim, first author and integrated MS-PhD researcher in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at UNIST, said, "This circuit design technology mitigates adverse effects such as power noise and electrode condition changes that interfere with stable acquisition of biosignals on healthcare platforms. Additionally, it efficiently extracts skin conductance information without additional area consumption beyond existing electrocardiogram channels."

President Lee Yong-hoon stated, "UNIST has demonstrated competitiveness in electrical and electronic engineering by excelling in power, MEMS, and medical fields at ISSCC. We will continue to grow in the increasingly important system semiconductor sector and contribute to the industry."

ISSCC 2023 was held from February 19 to 23, 2023.

The conference introduced 198 papers across 12 fields including analog, data converters, digital architecture and systems, digital circuits, IMMD, RF (radio frequency), wireless, wired, and memory.

More than half of the attendees come from semiconductor companies such as Samsung Electronics, Intel, and TSMC, focusing on practical research.

(From the first on the left in the back row, clockwise) Professor Kim Jae-jun, Professor Shin Se-woon, Researcher Jung Yeon-woo, Researcher Lee Seung-joo, Researcher Kim Hyun-joong of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at UNIST.