Talk of Prof. Ammar B. Kouki






Ammar B. Kouki



RF Components & Subsystems for NextG Wireless Communications: Efficiency and Field Reconfigurablity

Abstract

With each successive wireless network generation, requirements on energy and spectral efficiencies, RF bandwidth coverage and frequency agility have constantly increased. RF component and subsystem designs have so far managed to keep pace with this trend, though at a much higher design complexity and cost to a point where the RF front-end accounts for biggest rise in bill of material cost in 5G smartphones. Going forward, 6G networks are expected to deliver still higher data speeds with increased coverage and improved energy efficiency. These pose significant technological challenges at all layers of the network and in particular at the RF front-ends and antennas/propagation levels where energy efficiency and reconfigurability are critically important.

In this talk, we examine a multi-frontal approach to energy efficiency improvement in RF front- ends focusing on power amplifiers. We address the various basic concepts used, highlight their independent implementations and discuss their integration. Next, we present the fundamental challenges that underpin the development of field programmable RF components and subsystems. These cover hardware abstraction and functional representation, reconfigurable hardware technologies and techniques and embedded self-measurement and control. We then present a framework under which these challenges can be addressed and highlight our team’s recent progress in this area.




Biography

Ammar Kouki received the B.S. (Hons.) and M.S. degrees in Engineering Science from Pennsylvania State University, in 1985 and 1987, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1991. He is currently a Full Professor of Electrical Engineering and the Founding Director of the LTCC@ETS Laboratory at École de technologie supérieure, Montréal, Canada. His research interests are in the areas of modeling, simulation and design of active and passive microwave and mm-wave devices and circuits, reconfigurable and energy-efficient RF front-ends, 3-D circuits and sensors in LTCC, applied computational electromagnetics and antenna arrays, and radio-wave propagation modeling. He has extensive collaboration with industry in Canada and has successfully completed multiple technology transfers to companies. His research work has led directly to the creation of four start-ups and has netted over 300 publications as well as 8 granted patents, with one licensed. Dr. Kouki is a co-founder and the current president of the non-profit North American Tunisian Engineering Group (NATEG).