ISSCC 2020 : International Solid-State Circuits Conference

The steady advancement of solid-state circuits has led to technological betterment in our daily living, demonstrated by exploding applications ranging from medical, wearable and mobile electronics to IoT, virtual reality, autonomous driving and robotics. While the widespread excitement resides in the applications where end-users touch and feel, the systems are enabled by integrated circuits engines that are woven into this technological fabric of our lives. Galvanized by this reality, the solid-state circuits community is driven to enhance the platform that continues to evolve. With much enthusiasm and anticipation, and even uncertainty, we look onward to this emerging AI era. Consequently, ISSCC 2020 seeks contributions that will continue to enhance and reshape the future.

Innovative and original papers are solicited in subject areas including (but not limited to) the following:

ANALOG: Amplifiers, comparators, oscillators, filters, references; nonlinear analog circuits; digitally-assisted analog circuits; MEMS/sensor interface circuits.

DATA CONVERTERS: Nyquist-rate and oversampling A/D and D/A converters; embedded and application-specific A/D and D/A converters; analog to information conversion; time-to-digital converters.

DIGITAL CIRCUITS and ARCHITECTURES & SYSTEMS*: Digital circuits, building blocks, and complete systems for microprocessors, micro-controllers, application processors, graphics processors; digital systems for communications, video and multimedia, cryptography, smart cards, security and trusted computing, accelerators, reconfigurable systems, near- and sub-threshold systems, emerging applications. Digital circuits for intra-chip communication, clock distribution, soft-error and variation-tolerant design, power management (i.e. voltage regulators, adaptive digital circuits, digital sensors), PLLs for digital clocking applications, and security circuits (i.e. PUFs, TRNG, side-channel attack countermeasures, and attack-detection sensors).

IMAGERS, MEMS, MEDICAL, & DISPLAYS: Image sensors and SoCs; automotive, LIDAR, and ultrasonic sensors; MEMS sensor systems; wearable, implantable, ingestible electronics, biomedical SoCs, neural interfaces and closed-loop systems; biosensors, microarrays, and lab-on-a-chip; display electronics, displays with sensing functionality; sensing for AR/VR.

MACHINE LEARNING and AI: Chips demonstrating system, architecture and circuit innovations for machine learning and artificial intelligence: processor architectures, accelerators and digital circuits; mixed-signal, analog, near-sensor and in-sensor processing schemes; architectures leveraging near-memory and in-memory computation, using volatile or non-volatile memories.

MEMORY: Static, dynamic, and non-volatile memories for stand-alone and embedded applications; memory/SSD controllers; high-bandwidth I/O interfaces; memories based on phase-change, magnetic, spin-transfer-torque, ferroelectric, and resistive materials; array architectures and circuits to improve low-voltage operation, power reduction, reliability, and fault tolerance; application-specific circuit enhancements within the memory subsystem, including in-memory logic functions and compute.

POWER MANAGEMENT: Power control and management circuits, regulators; switched-mode power converter ICs using inductive, capacitive, and hybrid techniques; energy-harvesting circuits and systems; wide-bandgap topologies and gate-drivers; power and signal isolators; robust power management circuits for automotive and other harsh environments; circuits for lighting, wireless power and envelope modulators.

RF CIRCUITS and WIRELESS SYSTEMS**: Building blocks and complete solutions at RF, mm-Wave and THz frequencies for receivers, transmitters, frequency synthesizers, transceivers, SoCs, and SiPs. Innovative circuit-level and system-architecture solutions for established wireless standards and future systems or applications such as radar, sensing, and imaging.

TECHNOLOGY DIRECTIONS: Emerging IC and system solutions for: biomedical, sensor interfaces, analog signal processing, power management, computation (including non-CMOS machine learning), data storage, and communication; non-silicon-, carbon-, organic-, metal-oxide-, compound-semiconductor- and new-device-based circuits; nano, flexible, large-area, stretchable, printable, spintronics, quantum, optical, integrated photonics, and 3D-integrated electronics.

WIRELINE: Receivers/transmitters/transceivers for wireline systems, including backplane transceivers, optical links, chip-to-chip
communications, 2.5/3D interconnect, copper-cable links, and equalizing on-chip links; exploratory I/O circuits for advancing data rates, power efficiency, equalization, robustness, adaptation capability, and design methodology; building blocks for wireline transceivers (such as AGCs, analog and ADC/DAC-based front ends, equalizers, clock generation and distribution circuits including PLLs, line drivers, and hybrids).

*This category will be reviewed by either the Digital Circuits or Digital Architecture/Systems subcommittee.
**Papers submitted to this category will be reviewed by either the RF or Wireless Subcommittees.