Title：Designing Analog Integrated Circuits: Inspiration in Nature or Synthesized by AI ?
Location: Grand Ballroom, 4th Floor, Crowne Plaza Hotel
Speaker: Prof. Georges Gielen, KU Leuven, Belgium

Abstract: In this digitizing world, analog/mixed-signal integrated circuits remain key in all applications where electronics meet the physical world. While performance requirements keep rising, analog circuit design remains difficult, time-consuming, and error-prone, and these circuits don’t scale well to (sub-)nanometer CMOS. So, how can we bridge this gap, and how will future analog circuits be designed? This presentation will describe progress along two different tracks—one where inspiration from human nature is used to create low-area, low-energy circuits. Examples are bio-inspired solutions for sensing readout, such as in biomedical applications for e-skin or neuromodulation. The other track uses (generative) AI and machine learning to automatically create and optimize analog circuits. But is this hype or feasible? Will we still need analog designers in the future?

Bio: 

Prof. Georges G.E. Gielen received the MSc and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, in 1986 and 1990, respectively. Currently, he is Full Professor in the MICAS research division at the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT) at KU Leuven. From 2013 until 2017 he served as Vice-Rector for the Group of Sciences, Engineering and Technology. In 2018 he was visiting professor at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. From 2020 to 2024 he served as Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT) at KU Leuven.

His research interests are in the design of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits, and especially in analog and mixed-signal CAD tools and design automation, including modeling, simulation, optimization and synthesis as well as testing. He has graduated over 55 PhDs so far. He is a frequently invited speaker and serves/served as Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. He is coordinator/partner of several academic and industrial research projects in the above fields, including having awarded the ERC Advanced Grant AnalogCreate. He has (co-)authored 14 monograph books and more than 800 publications in edited books, international journals and conference proceedings. He is a 1997 Laureate of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences, Literature and Arts in the discipline of Engineering. He is Fellow of the IEEE since 2002, and received the IEEE CAS Mac Van Valkenburg award in 2015, the IEEE CAS Charles Desoer award in 2020, as well as the EDAA Achievement Award in 2021. He is an elected member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium in the class of Technical Sciences, and of the Academia Europaea.