Assistant Professor Lu Yan from the University of Macau (UM) State Key Laboratory of Analog and Mixed-Signal VLSI (AMSV) received the 2017 Outstanding Young Author Award from the Circuits and Systems (CAS) Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for his paper titled ‘A Fully-Integrated Low-Dropout Regulator with Full-Spectrum Power Supply Rejection’. This is the second time that a professor from the laboratory has received the award, showing that UM is now in a leading position in the world in microelectronics research.
The regulator was designed by Lu during his doctoral studies in Prof. Wing-Hung Ki and Prof. C. Patrick Yue’s group at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and the paper was published in the March 2015 edition of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers (TCAS-I). Established in 1985 by the IEEE CAS Society, the Outstanding Young Author Award honours an especially meritorious paper published in any of the CAS Society’s Transactions whose author is under the age of 30 at the date of submission. Papers shortlisted for the award are evaluated for their general quality, originality, contributions, subject matter, and timeliness. Each year, only one paper is selected for this award.
Lu’s paper proposes a tri-loop low-dropout (LDO) regulator architecture that realises a wide loop bandwidth, fast-transient response, and high-frequency power supply ripple rejection. The designed LDO regulator was also integrated in a wideband communication system for enhancing the sensitivity of the optical receiver. The paper has been ranked No. 1 among all the top downloaded popular TCAS-I papers in March 2015, and No. 3 in May 2015. It has also been cited in many important journals and at various conferences.
