When: 6:30pm – 8:45pm
Where: Texas Instruments Building E, 2900 Semiconductor Dr., Santa Clara, CA 95051 (See Map)
IEEE SCV CAS cosponsors IEEE SCV Communications Society on a technical talk
Registration Link is available here
Session Abstract:Moving RF-modulation, filtering and channel combining into the digital domain has recently enabled an order of magnitude power and size reductions in cable head end equipment. Small modules on a single line card have replaced racks of cable head-end equipment needed to supply video and high speed data to our homes. The key to this revolution is the use of RF D/A-Conversion. RF-DACs enable small, low power, GHz bandwidth RF transmitters with good spectral purity and high order modulation schemes to be designed. As end user demand for bandwidth continues to grow driving increased bandwidth in access networks RF-DACs are finding applications beyond cable. We will discuss RF-DACs, their function and their application in the design of highly flexible RF transmitters with wide bandwidths, small form factors and low power.
Speaker: Kurt Rentel
Bio: Kurt R. Rentel received the BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Iowa State University in 1979 and received the MS degree in Electrical Engineering from Colorado State University in 1984. He has been in a range of positions in design, business development, and marketing at Hewlett Packard, Comlinear, National Semiconductor and Maxim Integrated. He is currently Executive Director of Business Management for communication products at Maxim. He has been involved in analog and mixed signal solutions for broadband communications systems throughout his career with a focus on high speed ADCs and DACs.
Speaker: Geir Ostrem
Bio: Geir S. Ostrem (M’89) is leading communications infrastructure IC design at Maxim Integrated, Colorado Springs, Colorado. He received the M.Sc. and Ph. D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway in 1991 and 1996 respectively. He designed analog CMOS, BiCMOS and bipolar ASICs for a multitude of applications at Nordic VLSI, Trondheim, Norway from 1992-1998, with primary focus on high speed ADCs. From 1998 to 1999, he contributed to an analog front end for ADSL at Globespan Semiconductor, Red Bank, New Jersey as an LSI design project lead. He designed high speed ADCs at Signal Processing Technologies, Colorado Springs, Colorado from 1999 to 2001. Since 2001 he has been with Maxim Integrated, where his main contribution has been the development of RF-DACs, eliminating analog modulators in wired and wireless RF transmitters. Currently, he is an Executive Director of IC Design. His work is focused on digital RF solutions.
