Asif Khan has been chosen for a DARPA Young Faculty Award. Khan is an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), where he has been on the faculty since 2017.

Khan is receiving this award for his research on ferroelectric field-effect transistors for embedded non-volatile memory applications. Ferroelectric field-effect transistors is one of the most-promising device technologies for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) hardware, due to its energy efficiency and compatibility with high-volume semiconductor manufacturing. The project will focus on solving the critical voltage problem of this device technology, by identifying and implementing new strategies for interface defect reduction in and the downscaling of the ferroelectric gate-dielectric stack. 

Khan works on advanced semiconductor devices that will shape the future of computing in the post-scaling era. His research group currently focuses on ferroelectric devices in all aspects ranging from materials physics, growth, and electron microscopy to device fabrication, all the way to ferroelectric circuits and systems for AI/ML/data-centric applications.

His early career work led to the first experimental proof-of-concept demonstration of a physical phenomenon, namely the negative capacitance, in ferroelectric materials, which can reduce the power dissipation in electronic devices below the “fundamental” thermodynamic limit. Negative capacitance is currently a vibrant research area in materials science, condensed matter physics, and electrical engineering, and it is being pursued by all major semiconductor companies for advanced transistor technologies.

In the past, Khan has received multiple awards, including the NSF CAREER Award (2021), the Intel Rising Star Award (2020), Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship (2012), TSMC Outstanding Student Research Award (2011), and the University Gold Medal from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (2011). He was also named to the Center for Teaching and Learning Class of 1934 CIOS Honor Roll for his outstanding teaching in ECE8863 Quantum Computing Devices and Hardware in Fall 2020.

Khan’s group currently consists of seven graduate students and two research staff members. They publish in flagship microelectronics conferences, such as the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) and the Symposium on VLSI Technology, and in journals including IEEE Electron Device Letters, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Nature Electronics, Nature Materials, and Nano Letters. His students received multiple international and Institute-level awards, including the IEEE EDS Masters Student Fellowship (Prasanna Ravindran, 2020) and the Georgia Tech ECE's Colonel Oscar P. Cleaver Award (Nujhat Tasneem in 2018 and Zheng Wang in 2017) for achieving the highest score on the ECE Ph.D. preliminary examination, which was the criteria for the award up to 2018.

Hua Wang has received a DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) for his research on mm-Wave power amplifiers with extreme bandwidth and energy efficiency.

A member of the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty since 2012, Wang holds the Demetrius T. Paris Junior Professorship and leads the Georgia Tech Electronics and Micro-System (GEMS) Lab. He has also received multiple prestigious academic awards, including the IEEE MTT-S Outstanding Young Engineer Award in 2017, Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award in 2016, National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award in 2015, Roger P. Webb ECE Outstanding Junior Faculty Member Award in 2015, and Lockheed Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015, as well as many best paper awards in the field of solid-state circuits, systems, and microwave engineering. Wang is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society for 2018 and 2019.

As millimeter-wave frequency applications have become prevalent in the commercial and Department of Defense markets, there is a rapidly growing need for advanced millimeter-wave solid-state power amplifier technologies that can support high energy efficiency, sufficient output power, and high-speed complex modulations. Moreover, high-efficiency amplifiers covering extremely wide bandwidth have become a necessity, particularly for frequency-agile massive Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems, such as multi-standard 5G wireless communication.

In this project, Wang will lead the fundamental research on a completely new class of extremely-wideband-yet-efficient power amplifiers over the frequency range of 30-100GHz. The key technology innovations include novel amplifier circuit topologies, hybrid use of silicon/non-silicon solid-state devices, and multi-mode amplifier operations.

This project will potentially achieve a new class of load modulation power amplifiers with an unprecedented combination of bandwidth, energy efficiency, and output power. Such amplifier technologies will eventually enable true “common-module front-ends” for reconfigurable transmitters and MIMO systems with "full-spectrum access" and digital beam-forming for wireless communication, radar, imaging, and spectrum sensing applications.

Hua Wang has been awarded a prestigious Director’s Fellowship from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Wang is the first faculty member at Georgia Tech to receive this fellowship award from DARPA.

In 2018, Wang won the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA), which aims to identify and engage rising stars in young researchers who are motivated to pursue high-risk, high-reward fundamental research by pairing them with DARPA program managers and providing them with funding for a two-year period. 

DARPA YFA winners are chosen in a wide range of research areas from engineering, physics, and chemistry to computer science and social science. The long-term goal of the DARPA YFA program is to develop the next generation of academic scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who will focus a significant portion of their career on U.S. Department of Defense and national security issues.

At the end of the initial two-year period, DARPA YFA awardees with exceptional technical achievements and leadership will be selected for the highly competitive DARPA Director’s Fellowship that provides additional funding and support for a third year to extend their risk-taking research explorations.

Wang was selected for his Director’s Fellowship by the DARPA Microsystems Technology Office that develops next-generation intelligent microelectronics systems and components. His research focuses on inventing fundamental circuit topologies and system architectures that will lead to a new class of load modulation power amplifiers with an unprecedented combination of bandwidth, energy efficiency, output power, and linearity. These fundamental amplifier topologies will be agnostic to process technologies and will eventually enable true “common-module front-ends” for reconfigurable transmitters and MIMO systems with mm-Wave to THz “full-spectrum access” for wireless communication, radar, imaging, and spectrum sensing applications.

"DARPA has a long history of making pivot investment in breakthrough innovations, not only in game-changing defense capabilities but also foundational technologies for our modern civilian society, such as the internet and miniaturized GPS receivers,” says Wang. “It is a great honor to be recognized by DARPA for my team’s research. Our mission is to invent new circuits and systems by exploring fundamental topologies. When we remove the conventional boundaries between devices, circuits, and electromagnetics, and consider everything holistically, interesting innovations will happen.”

As a member of the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) faculty since 2012, Wang is currently an associate professor and leads the Georgia Tech Electronics and Micro-System (GEMS) Lab. He has received multiple prestigious academic awards, including the ECE Demetrius T. Paris Junior Professorship 2014-2018, IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Outstanding Young Engineer Award in 2017, Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award in 2016, National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2015, Roger P. Webb ECE Outstanding Junior Faculty Member Award in 2015, and Lockheed Dean’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015, as well as many best paper awards in the field of solid-state circuits, systems, and microwave engineering. Wang is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society for 2018 and 2019.