During my internship at Semi-Conductor Lab(SCL), under Department of Space, India, I had the opportunity to interact with scientists working on fields such as design and fabrication of MEMS and CMOS devices.Scientists were designing ASICs which were supposed to be used in satellites such as GSAT series and for defence applications .Here I realised how impactful research can be and this motivated me to pursue the same. Hence, I wish to pursue Master of Science in Electrical Engineering fromVirginia Tech. At SCL, I did small signal analysis of DC-DC converters and implemented control techniques. I also got a chance to explore various processes involved in fabrication.
During under-graduation I took courses on application areas of electronic circuits such as Medical instrumentation, FPGA Lab. In FPGA lab I worked on Vivado software and implemented mini projects such as car parking system. I used FPGA knowledge in a project on efficient solar PV cell integration to grid. This system comprised of a PV cell, high gain isolated converter with a passive clamp circuit and an inverter. Control signal for inverter was generated using FPGA. Total Harmonic distortion of the output voltage was under 4% which is below the permitted levels set by IEEE standard 519. I learnt about architecture of network on chip while implementing a fail-safe network and minimized communication cost in a multi core chip by optimally mapping cores to routers using Integer Linear Programming. My interest in electronics grew owing to such subjects and projects which is demonstrated by consistent improvement in my grades.
With wide ranging applications MEMS intrigued me, so I took it up as an elective. To explore further, I undertook a project to deisgn microfluidic integrated micro cantilevers for biosensing applications in COMSOL Multiphysics. Piezoelectric sensing was used to detect bending of cantilever and it was shown that bending was proportional to concentration of antigens, velocity and viscosity of fluid . If antibodies corresponding to antigens are placed on cantilever, presence and extent of disease can be detected. Currently, working as a research engineer in Hyundai Mobis, I was involved in unit and functional level verification of Electronic stability control feature. I learnt about various MEMS sensors used and logic implemented to control vehicle based on the data from sensors.
To gain more hands on experience, I interned in High Volume and Logic Team at Texas Instruments. I minimized the time taken to turn on E-fuse after turning off..After analysis I found out that turn on delay was caused in dv/dt block due to the time taken for reference capacitor to be re-charged. Two approaches were used. In the first method existing chip design was modified to quickly charge the reference capacitor by supplying required amount of current during turn on.In the second method, in order to avoid using comparators, new circuit was designed in Cadence Vituoso comprising of two loops. In the inner loop a differentiator amplifier controlled the rate of rise of voltage and outer loop elements ensured quick charging of Power FET gate. To stabilise the loops I conducted frequency domain analysis. I learnt about designing various components such as amplifiers with miller compensation, feedback circuits. I also learnt about modelling devices when I created transient generator models such as surge and electrical and fast transient in Verilog-A.
The experience of transforming an idea into a circuit, undergoing various stages such as circuit design, component design and then simulation and worst case analysis motivated me to studyfurther in this field
With research interests such as integrated analog circuits, mixed signal circuits and MEMS applications, I would like to be part of research centres like Kilby labs or be placed in leading universities to work on impactful projects in …. domain .I want to pursue Phd in future.
At Virginia tech I wish to contribute to the on going research on Low-power Analog IC Design for Small Scale Energy Harvesting under Prof Dong Ha. I am drawn towards research on neuromorphic computing under Prof Yang Yi .With my knowledge of analog design and voltage conveters I feel I will be able to contribute positively projects in MICS group. Virginia Tech has state of the art micro fabrication facilities and great research opportunities in the field of MEMS. I would like to be a part of projects in VTMEMS Lab on bio electronics under Prof Agah. I firmly believe the blend of accomplished faculty, excellent curriculum at Virginia Tech along with my capabilities and experience will help me establish myself in the world of research.
