Rice ECE receives two awards for paper submissions at CICC 2021

ECE research groups take home the CICC 2021 Outstanding Student Paper Award and the CICC 2021 Best Paper Award

2021 paper

The 2021 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC) saw two Rice University, Electrical and Computer Engineering research groups leave the conference with awards for their research paper submissions.

The CICC is a conference dedicated to integrated circuit development. With a combination of oral presentations, exhibits, panels, and forums, the conference sessions focus on first published technical work related to innovative circuit techniques.

This year’s virtual conference took place over five days and featured various paper presentations, education sessions, and keynote speakers.

Submitting a student paper, Yaolong Hu and Xiaohan Zhang shared their paper ‘A 28GHz Hybrid-Beamforming Transmitter Array Supporting Concurred Duel Data Steams and Spatial Notch Steering for 5G MIMO.’

The paper was selected for the CICC 2021 Outstanding Student Paper Award. Focusing on MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) antenna technology for wireless communications, both students, Yaolong Hu, and Xiaohan Zhang are a part of the Rice Integrated Systems and Electromagnetics (RISE) Lab under Rice ECE Prof. Taiyun Chi.

The second Rice group to win top honors for their paper was Zhanghao Yu, Joshua Chen, Yan He, Fatima Alrashdan, Benjamin Avants, Amanda Singer, Jacob Robinson, and Kaiyuan Yang. Their CICC 2021 Best Paper Award was for their submission ‘Multisite Bio-stimulating Implants Magnetoelectrically Powered and Individually Programmed by a Single Transmitter.’

The paper highlighted their lab’s experiment surrounding implants for electrical stimulation in patients with spinal cord injuries. The paper showed that alternating magnetic fields generated and controlled by a battery-powered transmitter outside the body could deliver power and programming to two or more implants at least 60 millimeters (2.3 inches) away.

“To have two papers recognized by CICC demonstrates how our faculty and students are conducting leading research within the field of ECE. We’re most proud of the real-world applications of this research, said Ashu Sabharwal, Chair, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University.

“Year after year, our researchers continue to lead studies and be recognized for their work pushing forward the applications of electrical and computer engineering.”