The lecture is free to attend and open to all, but registration is required in advance
A pre-lecture reception with tea, coffee and cakes will be held upstairs on the second floor foyer area within the Skempton Building from 16:45
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Abstract
Implantability, wearability and portability of modern healthcare devices are underpinned by ultra-low-power transistor operation. The low-power operation regime of weakly-inverted transistors is governed by a physics-dictated non-linear logarithmic/exponential characteristic. Conventional design approaches rely upon combinations of non-linear transistors to realise linear blocks for further processing of the signal.
In this talk we will present “log-domain”, an unconventional transistor-level design paradigm which views the innate transistor non-linearity as an asset to be exploited and not as a nuisance. We will present the origins of log-domain research and how we can harness the non-linearity of transistors to realise in a systematic manner high-performance, low-power, linear or non-linear microelectronics “for” or “from” (i.e. inspired by) biology.
Emphasis will be placed upon exemplary topologies such as logarithmic channels for bionic ears/cochlear implant processors (circuits for Biology) and upon recent progress made in the field of cytomimetic/cytomorphic microelectronics which is still in its infancy and focuses on realising on silicon non-linear cell dynamics (circuits from Biology).
Biography
E.M.Drakakis earned the B.Sc. degree (1st Class Honours) in Physics and the M.Phil. degree (1st Class Honours) in Electronic Physics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece, and the Ph.D. degree in IC design from Imperial College London. During his PhD he was sponsored by the Micro-Electronics Research Center of LM Ericsson-Stockholm. In 2001 he joined the newly established Dept. of Bioengineering of Imperial where he is now Professor in Bio-Circuits and Systems. His Group’s research activities revolve around two axes: “Circuits for Biology” (inspiration drawn by the need for innovative instrumentation as dictated by a specific biological or medical need) and “Circuits from Biology” (inspiration drawn by operational, architectural and/or anatomical characteristics encountered in natural information processing systems).
The Group’s research has been funded by a variety of research and translational sources including the Royal Society, EPSRC and BBSRC, Wellcome Trust-Dept of Health, the Human Frontier Science Program, FSRF, Imperial Innovations and the Bagrit Trust, the UK and the US industry. Over the years Dr. Drakakis and his Group have received 16 prizes, distinctions and awards. Dr Drakakis has a cumulative Associate Editor experience of more than 23 years in IEEE Transactions and other microelectronic journals. He currently serves as AE for IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems and an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Neuromorphic Engineering. He has authored and co-authored ~ 140 peer-reviewed publications almost half of them in specialist journals.