Openings at BE

Postdoc Low-power Embedded Smart Multi-sensor Platform

Future autonomous always-on smart Edge-IoT nodes must be able to sense a wide variety of stimuli from their environment, interpret the data, and trigger appropriate responses, while surviving on a minimal energy budget. Connecting ever more discrete sensors to a microcontroller-based read-out circuit on a PCB is not sustainable on the long term, because it increases complexity, size, power consumption and bill of materials of the system. Instead, we need a generic scalable, integrated, manufacturable and cost-effective approach for simultaneously sensing a multitude of parameters like humidity, gases, odors, motion, air pressure, and infrared light.

The CMOS Pixelated Capacitive Sensor technology, originally developed by NXP Semiconductors, offers an ideal solution for this problem. It provides a true CMOS-compatible massively parallel physical sensing interface at the surface of a CMOS chip, on which multiple sensing functions can be implemented side by side using suitable transduction materials.

Your main task will be to realize this paradigm-shifting multi-sensing concept. This work is highly multi-disciplinary, including

• Integrating transduction materials on test chips currently under development using additive manufacturing
• Developing algorithms for calibrating and interpreting the sensor signals
• Building, testing and demonstrating convincing prototypes
• Collaborating with other academic and industrial researchers
• Publishing results in high-impact journals

Requirements

• PhD degree in Electronics or Physics.
• Team player with strong competences in electronics, microfabrication, material science, and system integration.
• Experience with signal processing and machine learning is preferred.
• Good communication skills are mandatory.

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