Projects

The general objective of the proposal is to exploit the full potential of combining modern microelectronics and micro-fabrication techniques with microbiological functionality. Marrying these interdisciplinary aspects will allow to construct a new class of chips that will facilitate novel and radically different approaches in microbial ecology. The MICCAS project will create a unique setting to develop a multifunctional tool that will allow ...

Optical communication is an interesting alternative for communication over a copper wire when speed, weight and electromagnetic immunity are considered important. If the cost of going optical instead of staying electrical were not so high, it would probably be used in a lot more applications. Therefore, in order to make this possible, the goal of this project is to investigate a novel concept of implementing a full optical receiver in a low ...

Although today's electronic systems implement most of their functionality in the digital domain, several analog operations remain necessary, e.g. amplification, filtering and above all analog-todigital conversion. These analog circuits are preferably co-integrated with the digital circuits in today's nanometer CMOS technology. But this gives two important problems. First, the analog transistor performance (e.g. gain) is poor in such ...

Driven by advances in deep learning, powerful automated algorithms enable us to hold conversations with virtual assistants running on our mobile phone, cars are autonomously driving on streets in mixed traffic, increasingly sophisticated medical diagnostic software is assisting doctors in making life-saving decisions, and social networks and media libraries are automatically indexed and personalized to individual users. At the core of these ...

In the proposed research we will further investigate ultra low power digital circuit techniques. The focus will be on in-situ timing detection with automatic error correction and/or prevention for further power reduction in digital circuits. It also entails the verification of the results with silicon prototypes in advanced CMOS technologies. The techniques that will be studied and further developed should be compatible with the standard ...

In medicine knowledge about the blood circulation and respiratory function is crucial. Feeling the pulse and counting breaths is an art practiced for thousands of years. For just as long doctors have desired a way to simultaneously and objectively monitor multiple patients and being called upon only if needed. Medical photonic diagnosis started in 1937 when Hertzman built the first photoplethysmography (PPG) device, which was capable of ...

Since World War II, Radars have gone a long way from bulky and expensive military/space radars to miniaturized radars for various applications in the consumer, automotive and smart environments domains. The trend over the last decade has been to move to millimeter wave, supported by the constant improvement in semiconductor technology and supported by a strong demand in the automotive domain. IMEC started several years ago the development of ...

The project addresses the the problem of interaction between the autonomous systems and the users in a way where the visual and language information are used to complement and reinforce one another, by learning representations that jointly capture the meaning of language and the visual reality and that allow visual situations to be translated into language and language into visuals. The approach is based on the use of neural networks, or more ...

BoundCom targets at conceiving a Visual and Coverage-bounding wireless communication system for secure proximity interactions. “Visual” means that the communication range and process are visible to users, representing an important and user-friendly side-channel for secure wireless communication. “Coverage-bounding” means that the communication coverage can be controlled accurately in 3-dimensions. BoundCom will provide secure wireless ...

The proposed research is on development of purely electrical flow-cytometer. Cytometer is an instrument that is capable of assessing cell morphology (size, granularity), and detect presence of characteristic epitopes (antigenes or receptors) on the cell membrane. Investigated cells are flowing consecutively through the sensor allowing to quickly classify the biological sample, for instance, blood cells. High speed and high sensitivity make ...