PDEng position on Multi-Standard GNSS front-end in 40/28nm at Eindhoven University of Technology

Post-Master PDEng position on Multi-Standard GNSS front-end in 40/28nm in the Mixed-signal Microelectronics (MsM) group, department of Electrical Engineering.

The ICT post-master designers program is a two-year salaried program in the field of technological design in Electrical Engineering. The program leads to a Professional Doctorate in Engineering (PDEng) degree.

PDEng project
The goal of this project is to develop a multi-standard Global Positioning front-end that complies with all 4 currently defined standards: GPS, Galileo, Glonass and Biedou. This design will be carried out in deep sub-micron CMOS technology (40 or 28nm). Main challenges of the project will be the receiver architecture and frequency planning to cover all satellite bands, with options for concurrency, small chip area and low power consumption. Area efficient RF and analog circuit design in 40/28nm processes requires different approach. Passive analog components like inductors and capacitors require a large chip area that is very expensive in these processes. Moreover, they are not very suitable for technology transfer. Therefore, the new design will have Inductor-less LNA and Oscillator circuits. To achieve this, we will be making use of novel system and circuit architectures (wideband LNA, noise cancelation techniques, wideband PLL, etc.). Similarly, we will need novel approach to lower power consumption to meet challenging targets for the emerging 'wearable electronics' market. Again, we will need new approaches to system and circuit design. For example, 'intelligent' bias control could optimize average power consumption by adapting momentary circuit conditions depending on the real field requirements.

The project is to be executed at Catena Delft site that is the center of competence for analog and RF circuit design for Catena in The Netherlands. The candidates will be supervised by senior RF designers with previous experience in the field. There is extensive existing material available as starting point; previous generation 40nm GPS front-end, wideband LNA concept, etc..

Closing Date: 13-03-2016

Further details:
PDEng position on Multi-Standard GNSS front-end in 40/28nm at Eindhoven University of Technology