Speaker: Darrin Young, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Utah

Darrin J. Young received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at University of California at Berkeley in 1991, 1993, and 1999, respectively. He pioneered the research work in MEMS-based, high-Q, tunable capacitors and on-chip 3-D coil inductors for low-phase noise RF voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) design for wireless communication applications. His doctoral thesis work demonstrated the first RF-CMOS VCO employing on-chip high-Q passive devices achieving the stringent GSM phase noise requirements. Between 1991 and 1993, he worked at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto, California, where he designed a shared memory system for a DSP-based multiprocessor architecture. Between 1997 and 1998, he worked at Rockwell Semiconductor Systems in Newport Beach, California, where he designed silicon bipolar RF analog circuits for cellular telephony applications. During this time period he was also at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, working on the design and fabrication of three-dimensional RF MEMS coil inductors for wireless communications. Dr. Young joined the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University in 1999 as an assistant professor. In 2009 he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Utah as an USTAR associate professor. His research interests include micro-electro-mechanical systems design, fabrication, and integrated analog circuits design for wireless sensing, biomedical implant, communication, and general industrial applications. He has published many technical papers in journals and conferences, and served as a technical program committee member and session chair for a number of international conferences. Dr. Young is also an associate editor of the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits and chair of the IEEE Electron Devices Society MEMS Committee.

Presentation Abstract:

Advancement in micromachined sensors, actuators, and low-power integrated electronics has fueled recent rapid development in wireless microsystem technology providing autonomous sensing and communication capability. Ultra low system power dissipation allows batteryless microsystem to be achieved with a small form factor and powered by ambient or external energy sources. Such system is crucial for biomedical as well as industrial sensing applications, where size, weight, and limited access are critical system design constraints. Optimized design in system, device, circuit, and packaging is highly important for achieving an overall high performance. In this seminar, I will first present a wireless, batteryless, implantable blood pressure monitoring system for real-time genetically engineered mice monitoring. This technology will not only serve as a critical tool for system biology research, but also is expected to provide improved human health care quality in future. In vivo blood pressure sensing technique, MEMS pressure sensor, and integrated electronics design for sensor interface, signal processing, digital sensor information telemetry, and adaptive remote RF powering will be described. Overall implant system performance will be demonstrated. In the second part of the seminar, a MEMS middle ear acoustic sensor design for human fully implantable cochlear prosthesis will be discussed with implant performance illustrated.