PIZZA AT 13:00,  TALKS START AT 13:10

Talk 1:   NEALE DUTTON - A Time-Correlated Single-Photon Counting Sensor with 14GS/s Histogramming  Time-to-Digital Converter

Time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) is a photon-efficient technique to record ultra-fast optical waveforms found in numerous applications such as time-of-flight (ToF) range measurement (LIDAR), ToF 3D imaging, scanning optical microscopy, diffuse optical tomography and Raman sensing. Many ultra-fast optical waveforms exhibit high dynamic range in the number of photons emitted. We present an ultra-parallel TDC architecture, to capture such high dynamic range optical phenomena, that has a 20X higher conversion rate or throughput than any other time converter integrated circuit. The sensor performs a parallel direct-to histogram conversion and creates a time-domain histogram on chip, processing a maximum of 1.7Gphoton/s and generating 21k histograms/s.

Talk 2:   WEI ZHOU - Autonomous Smart Antenna System for Future Mobile Devices

Along with the current trend of wireless technology innovation, wideband, compact size, low-profile, lightweight and multiple functional antenna and array designs are becoming more attractive in many applications. Conventional wireless systems utilise omni-directional or sectored antenna systems. The disadvantage of such antenna systems is that the electromagnetic energy, required by a particular user located in a certain direction, is radiated unnecessarily in every direction within the entire cell, hence causing interference to other users in the system. In order to limit this source of interference and direct the energy to the desired user, smart antenna systems have been investigated and developed. This talk will present the design, simulation, fabrication and full implementation of a novel smart antenna system for future mobile applications.