Welcome

Welcome to the Rice Integrated Systems and Circuits Laboratory (RISC). We focus on analysis, design, and testing of integrated sensors and systems with applications in high-speed wireless links, radar, medical imaging, biosensing, and oil/gas monitoring. 

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Research

Current Research
Silicon-based mm-Wave and THz Transceivers and On-chip Antennas
Miniaturized Sensors for Energy Exploration and Production
Large-Scale Radiating Integrated (LSRI) Chips
Miniturized Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) Spectrometers
Sensors for Medical Imaging and Neural Engineering
Optoelectronic Systems and Devices in Conventional CMOS
Past Research
Near-Field Direct Antenna Modulation (NFDAM)
A 77 GHz Phased Array Transceiver with On-Chip Antennas
On-Chip Magnetic Resonant Imaging (MRI) Transmitter and Receiver
A 60GHz Scalable Two-Dimensional Phased Array Transmitter With On-Chip Antennas

A Scalable 6-18 GHz Concurrent Dual-Band Quad-Beam Phased Array Receiver

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News

June 2017- Congratulations Himanshu! Himanshu is nominated for a Young Engineer Prize by the 2017 European Microwave Integrated Circuit Conference (EuMIC).

June 2017- RISC Laboratory develops a wirelessly powered pacemaker microchip in collaboration with Texas Heart Institute.

April 2017- Professor Babakhani has been promoted to Associate Professor.

March 2017- Professor Babakhani provides his perspective on the energy technolgies at the CeraWeek conference.

February 2017- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh wins IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) Graduate Fellowship award.

February 2017- Congratulations Hamed! Hamed Rahmani's paper titled "3GHz Wireless Power Receiver with an On-chip Antenna for Millimeter-size Biomedical Implants in 180nm SOI CMOS," has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2017.

February 2017- Congratulations Yuxiang! Yuxiang Sun's paper titled "Wirelessly Powered Implantable Pacemaker with On-Chip Antenna," has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2017.

February 2017- Congratulations Babak! Babak Jamali's paper titled "A Fully Integrated Injection-Locked Picosecond Pulse Receiver for 0.29psrms-Jitter Wireless Clock Synchronization in 65nm CMOS," has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2017.

December 2016- Congratulations RISC THz team RISC's paper titled "Gone in a Picosecond: Techniques for the Generation and Detection of Picosecond Pulses and Their Applications," has been featured in IEEE Microwave Magazine 2016.

December 2016- Congratulations Peiyu! Peiyu Chen's paper titled "A Nonlinear Q-Switching Impedance Technique for Picosecond Pulse Radiation in Silicon," has been published in IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques 2016.

October 2016- Prof. Babakhani and Prof. Knightly received $1.3M from National Science Foundation to build the world's first Tbits/sec wireless link.

September. 2016- Prof. Aydin Babakhani is promoted to Louis Owen Junior Chair Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

September 2016- Congratulations Hamed! Hamed Rahmani's paper titled "A Fully Integrated Electromagnetic Energy Harvesting Circuit with an on-Chip Antenna for Biomedical Implants in 180 nm SOI CMOS" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE Sensors 2016.

September 2016- Prof. Babakhani gives a keynote speech on High-Power THz Pulse Radiation in Silicon at the 41st International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz.
August 2016- Congratulations! Yang's paper titled "A Full-Duplex Single-Chip Transceiver with Self-Interference Cancellation in 0.13µm SiGe BiCMOS for Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy" has been published at the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits 2016.

July 2016- Mahdi Assefzadeh and Prof. Aydin Babakhani win the 2nd Best Paper Award at the 2016 IEEE AP-S Symposium on Antennas and Propagation.

June 2016- Peiyu Chen and Prof. Aydin Babakhani win the 2nd Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

April 2016- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper titled "Broadband Beam-forming of Terahertz Pulses with a Single-Chip 4x2 Array in Silicon" has been selected among finalists for the Best Paper award at the IEEE Antennas and Propagation International Symposium 2016.

April 2016- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper titled "Broadband THz Spectroscopic Imaging based on a Fully Integrated 4x2 Digital-to-Impulse Radiating Array with a Full-Spectrum of 0.03-1.03THz in Silicon" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits 2016.

March 2016- Congratulations Peiyu and Mostafa! Peiyu Chen and Mostafa Hosseini's paper titled "An Integrated Germanium-Based Optical Waveguide Coupled THz Photoconductive Antenna in Silicon" has been accepted for presentation at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CELO) 2016.

March 2016- Congratulations Babak and Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh and Babak Jamali's paper titled "Terahertz Trace Gas Spectroscopy Based on a Fully-Electronic Frequency-Comb Radiating Array in Silicon" has been accepted for presentation at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CELO) 2016.

March 2016- Congratulations Himanshu! Himanshu Aggrawal wins IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) Graduate Fellowship award.

March 2016- Congratulations Peiyu! Peiyu Chen's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2016.

March 2016- Congratulations Xuebei! Xuebei Yang's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2016.

February 2016- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper titled "Broadband Beam-forming of Terahertz Pulses with a Single-Chip 4×2 Array in Silicon" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE Antennas and Propagation International Symposium 2016.

February 2016- Congratulations Peiyu! Peiyu Chen's paper titled "A 4ps Amplitude Reconfigurable Impulse Radiator with THz-TDS Characterization Method in 0.13µm SiGe BiCMOS," has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2016.

February 2016- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper titled "A Fully-Integrated Digitally-Programmable 4x4 Picosecond Digital-to-Impulse Radiating Array in 65nm Bulk CMOS," has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2016.

February 2016- Congratulations Xuebei! Xuebei Yang's paper titled "A Single-Chip In-Band Full-Duplex Low-IF Transceiver with Self-Interference Cancellation," has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2016.

February 2016- Congratulations Babak! Babak Jamali's paper titled "Sub-picosecond Wireless Synchronization Based on a Millimeter-Wave Impulse Receiver with an On-chip Antenna in 0.13µm SiGe BiCMOS," has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2016.

February 2016- Congratulations Yuxiang! Yuxiang Sun's paper titled "A Wirelessly Powered Injection-Locked Oscillator with On-Chip Antennas in 180nm SOI CMOS," has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2016.

January 2016- Mahdi Assefzadeh and Prof. Aydin Babakhani win the Best Paper Award at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2016.

January 2016- RISC laboratory receives $5M in grants to develop integrated microchips for oil and gas exploration and monitoring.

January 2016- Prof. Babakhani wins NSF CAREER Award.

November 2015- Congratulations Himanshu! Himanshu Aggrawal's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2016.

November 2015- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2016.

November 2015- Congratulations Himanshu! Himanshu Aggrawal's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE International Microwave and RF Conference (IMaRC) 2015.

October 2015- Congratulations Himanshu! Himanshu Aggrawal's paper titled "An Ultra-Wideband Impulse Receiver for sub-100fsec Time-Transfer and sub-30µm Localization" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2016.

October 2015- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper titled "Picosecond Digital-to-Impulse Generator in Silicon" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2016.

October 2015- Congratulations Babak! Babak Jamali's paper titled "A 0.2-2.6GHz Instantaneous Frequency-to-Voltage Converter in 90nm CMOS" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2016.

October 2015- Congratulations Himanshu! Himanshu Aggrawal's paper titled "Ultra-Wideband Pulse-Based Directional Modulation" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave and RF Conference (IMaRC) 2015.

September 2015- Prof. Babakhani and Prof. Knightly received $0.8M from National Science Foundation to push the limits of data-rate in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN).

August 2015- Prof. Babakhani, Prof. Aazhang, and neurosurgeon Dr. Tandon received $1M from National Science Foundation to study how brain processes language with implanted microchips.

August 2015- Prof. Babakhani gives a keynote speech on Picosecond Impulse Radiating Chips at the 40th International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz.

August 2015- Congratulations Charles! Charles Chen will present the world's first Wireless Synchronization of mm-wave Arrays at the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference in September 2015.

July 2015- Prof. Babakhani gives an invited talk on Single-Chip Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Transceivers at the 57th Annual Rocky Mountain Conference on Magnetic Resonance.

July 2015- Prof. Babakhani gives an invited talk at the International Symposium on Microwave/Terahertz Science and Applications and the International Symposium on Terahertz Nanoscience.

April 2015- Congratulations Galen Schmidt, Jeremy Hunt, and Spencer Kent! The senior project sponsored by the RISC laboratory wins the Best Award at the Rice's annual Engineering Design Showcase.

March 2015- Congratulations Xeubei! Xuebei Yang wins IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) Graduate Fellowship award.

March 2015- Congratulations Xeubei! Xuebei Yang's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium 2015.

January 2015- Peiyu Chen and Prof. Aydin Babakhani win the Best Paper Award at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2015.

November 2014- Congratulations Peiyu! Peiyu Chen's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium (RWS) 2015.

November 2014- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh wins the top prize in ECE for his 90-second pitch in SCREECH competition.

September 2014- Prof. Babakhani (PI) and Prof. Baraniuk (Co-PI) win a major DURIP grant from AFOSR to develop a millimeter-wave hyper-spectral three-dimensional imaging system.

July 2014- RISC laboratory's DARPA funded Young Faculty Award (YFA) project has been selected for presentation at the prestigious 2014 DARPA MTO Exposition. This was the only YFA project selected for presentation at this Exposition.

June 2014- Terahertz Tech Gets a Major Push at Rice. $2.5M grant awarded by Keck Foundation and Rice Universiy.

June 2014- Mahdi Assefzadeh and Prof. Aydin Babakhani win the Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

June 2014- Himanshu Aggrawal and Prof. Aydin Babakhani win the 4th Prize at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

April 2014- Congratulations Himanshu! Himanshu Aggrawal's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

April 2014- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper is selected among Student Paper Competition Finalists at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

February 2014- Prof. Babakhani wins Northrop Grumman's Innovation Award.

February 2014- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper titled "A 9-psec Differential Lens-Less Digital-to-Impulse Radiator with 150-fs-Resolution Delay Line in Silicon" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC) 2014.

February 2014- Congratulations Xuebei! Xuebei Yang's paper titled "A 2.5Gb/s 0.38mm2 Optical Receiver with Integrated Photodiodes in 0.18µm CMOS SOI" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

February 2014- Congratulations Himanshu! Himanshu Aggrawal's paper titled "A 40GS/s Track-and-Hold Sampler with 62dB SFDR3 in 45nm CMOS SOI" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

February 2014- Congratulations Mahdi! Mahdi Assefzadeh's paper titled "An 8-psec 13dBm Peak EIRP Digital-to-Impulse Radiator with an On-chip Slot Bow-Tie Antenna in Silicon" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

February 2014- Congratulations Xuebei! Xuebei Yang's paper titled "A Fully-Integrated Free-space Optically-Locked VCO with Picosecond Timing Jitter in 0.18µm CMOS" has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2014.

June 2013- Congratulations Xuebei! Xuebei Yang's paper titled " Impact of Layout on the Performance of Photodiodes in 0.18µm CMOS SOI, " has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE Photonics Conference (IPC) 2013.

February 2013- Congratulations Xuebei and Payam! Xuebei's and Payam's paper titled " A Single-Chip Dual-Mode CW/Pulse Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectrometer in 0.13µm SiGe BiCMOS, " has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2013. They will present the world's first single-chip dual-mode electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer in silicon.

February 2013- Congratulations Charles and Payam! Charles's and Payam's paper titled " A Silicon-Based, Fully Integrated Pulse Electron Paramagnetic Resonance System for mm-Wave Spectroscopy, " has been accepted for presentation at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS) 2013.

January 2013- Congratulations Xuebei! Xuebei Yang's paper titled " Optical Waveguides and Photodiodes in 0.18µm CMOS SOI with No Post-processing, " has been accepted for presentation at the Optical Fiber Communication (OFC) Conference 2013.

May 2012- Prof. Babakhani wins DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA).

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Open Positions:

1) Postdoctoral Scholars: Please email Professor Babakhani.
2) Graduate Students: If you are a prospective graduate student, please follow the application process, and indicate your interest in integrated circuits design.