PhD student position in High-Performance mm-Wave Transceivers

Information about the research and the project
Future wireless communication systems need to support orders of magnitude more devices, higher data rates, and less energy consumption. This drives the research and development of radically new technical solutions. Base stations equipped with hundreds of individually driven antenna elements and operating at hitherto less explored millimeter wave frequency bands will be an important part of the future wireless infrastructure that should serve people, industry, and vehicles with the improved communication capacity that will be needed.

The complexity and cost of realizing such future base stations and systems will require completely new radio solutions, built on an extremely tight integration of analog and digital techniques. Modern downscaled silicon CMOS processes offer a unique possibility to combine high speed and energy efficient digital and analog functions.

The focus of your PhD research project will be to explore latest CMOS technologies to investigate new mm-wave transmitter solutions, using digital techniques to supervise, control, and enhance the performance beyond what can be achieved with traditional analog mm-wave design methods. We will analyze, model, design, and build components and subsystems, and experimentally verify their performance in realistic wireless system scenarios.

This position is funded by Chalmers GHz Centre (www.chalmers.se/ghz). You will thereby be part of a cross disciplinary team of academic and industrial researchers, where our common goal is to push the ultimate limits for energy efficient and high capacity wireless communication system designs.

Your position will be hosted by the VLSI Research Group at the Department of Computer Science (CSE) and Engineering. You will also work in close collaboration with researchers at the Microwave Electronics Laboratory at the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2). You will thereby have access to a unique combination of VLSI and millimeter-wave design expertise, and world-class millimeter-wave measurement infrastructure as needed to carry out this challenging research project.

Major responsibilities
Your major responsibility as PhD student is to pursue your own doctoral studies. You are expected to develop your own scientific concepts and communicate the results of your research verbally and in writing. The position generally also includes teaching or performing other departmental duties corresponding to 20% of full time.

You will participate in research as outlined above and will be working with colleagues at both departments which will be essential to help cross-fertilize our work. Therefore, working in teams is an essential aspect, as is “thinking outside the box”. The appointment offers an opportunity to qualify for further research positions within academia or industry. Included in your work is also to some extent taking part in the supervision and teaching of students.

Position summary
Full-time temporary employment. The position is limited to a maximum of five years.

Qualifications
The role of this particular PhD student, who will be a member both of the VLSI Research Group at CSE and the Microwave Electronics Lab at MC2, is to be the digital and mixed-signal expert of the team. Together with the other team members, who will provide mm-wave and communication-system expertise, the student will identify and develop VLSI implementation techniques for energy-efficient architectures and circuits as well as energy models of essential components, with the goal of exploring and implementing energy-efficient high-performance transmitters. Candidates for this position must therefore have a background in electronics design with emphasis on ASICs.

To qualify as a PhD student, you must have a master's level degree corresponding to at least 240 higher education credits in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or similar, with a strong background in electronics design with emphasis on ASICs. Excellent team-working skills, presentation skills, and fluency in English are required. As merits will be considered knowledge in signal processing and mixed-signal design; high-frequency measurements, experience with ASIC EDA tools, in particular those of Cadence, Synopsys and Mentor Graphics; experience with MATLAB; teaching experience; and publications.

Chalmers continuously strives to be an attractive employer. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Application deadline: 4 December 2016

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. *** 
   



Chalmers University of Technology conducts research and education in engineering sciences, architecture, technology-related mathematical sciences, natural and nautical sciences, working in close collaboration with industry and society. The strategy for scientific excellence focuses on our eight Areas of Advance; Building Futures, Energy, Information & Communication Technology, Life Science, Materials Science, Nanoscience & Nanotechnology, Production and Transport. The aim is to make an active contribution to a sustainable future using the basic sciences as a foundation and innovation and entrepreneurship as the central driving forces. Chalmers has around 11,000 students and 3,000 employees. New knowledge and improved technology have characterised Chalmers since its foundation in 1829, completely in accordance with the will of William Chalmers and his motto: Avancez!