IBM / ETH Center for Advanced Silicon Electronics (CASE) receives EEEfCOM Innovation Award 2004

Zurich, Switzerland, Nov 2004—The IBM / ETH Center for Advanced Silicon Electronics (CASE) has received the Gerotron / Rohde & Schwarz / Agilent EEEfCOM (Electrical and Electronic Engineering for Communication) Innovation Award 2004 in the category Universities. The value of the award is €40,000 for equipment to be used within CASE.

CASE receives this award for research in the field of CMOS RF circuit design. The work demonstrates that, with enhanced circuit topologies, it is now possible to develop and fabricate speed-relevant analog components, such as amplifiers, mixers and oscillators, at frequencies around 40 GHz and above in CMOS technology. These achievements may open new perspectives in the area of high-speed wireless communication.

CASE is an intensive cooperation in the field of high-speed IC development using leading-edge IBM CMOS and BiCMOS technologies. In this collaboration, ETH benefits from IBM's IC technologies and office facilities, whereas IBM can draw on the manpower of ETH to explore and push the speed limits of their technologies in terms of circuit design.

The recipient of the awardis F. Ellinger for works performed during his habilitation (postdoctoral) thesis. Significant contributors were the Electronics Laboratory CASE team of Ellinger consisting of D. Barras, G. von Büren, C. Kromer, L. Rodoni and G. Sialm, and the IBM I/O Link Technology group of M. Schmatz with C. Berger, P. Buchmann, P. Dill, M. Kossel, C. Menolfi, T. Morf, T. Toifl and J. Weiss.