PhD Position in High-Performance CMOS Receiver and Analog-to-Digital Converter Design

Join the ERC Synergy DISRUPT project to reinvent receiver and ADC architectures for next-generation wireless communication. Design time-domain receivers and ADCs and validate them on real silicon.

Job description

Why this position is important

Future wireless transmitters must achieve extremely high linearity and spectral purity while operating with high efficiency. However, transmitter nonlinearities and hardware imperfections introduce distortion that degrades signal quality and increases out-of-band emissions. Digital predistortion (DPD) is widely used to compensate for these effects, but its effectiveness strongly depends on the accuracy of the observation receiver used to measure the transmitter output and extract distortion information.

This position is part of the ERC Synergy DISRUPT project, which aims to develop new architectures for observing the transmitter output efficiently and accurately. The goal is to design innovative receiver and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) architectures capable of capturing the transmitter output with extremely high fidelity, enabling precise characterization of transmitter errors and nonlinearities. These measurements will be used to generate error signals for advanced AI-assisted digital predistortion algorithms that can dynamically linearize the transmitter.

The research will contribute to enabling highly efficient and spectrally clean transmitters for next-generation wireless communication systems.

What you will do

In this role, you will explore and develop innovative receiver and ADC architectures for accurate observation of transmitter signals. Your work will focus on time-domain receiver concepts and high-speed, medium-resolution ADCs designed to capture transmitter distortions with high dynamic range and precision.

Your activities will include system-level modeling, architectural exploration, transistor-level circuit design, and detailed simulation and verification. The developed architectures will be implemented as integrated circuits and validated through measurements on fabricated silicon chips.

With whom you will work

You will be supervised by Masoud Babaie and Robert Bogdan Staszewski and will be part of the ELCA (Electronic Circuits and Architectures) group in the Microelectronics Department. The ELCA group conducts world-leading research in RF and mixed-signal integrated circuits for wireless communication systems.

You will work closely with PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and senior scientists within the ERC Synergy DISRUPT project (e.g., Prof. de Vreede), and collaborate with international academic partners involved in the project. The position offers a highly collaborative and stimulating research environment at the forefront of integrated circuit innovation.

Job requirements

Essential requirements

• M.Sc. degree in Microelectronics, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related field.
• Strong background in analog, mixed-signal, and RF circuit design.
• Hands-on RTL design experience (SystemVerilog, Verilog, or Verilog-AMS).
• Demonstrable creativity and originality in problem solving and circuit design.
• Good presentation, writing, and communication skills.
• Strong command of English (spoken and written).
• Ability to work effectively in an international and collaborative research environment.
• Strong team player with excellent communication skills to collaborate smoothly with international colleagues.

Nice to have

• Prior tape-out experience.
• Familiarity with the digital back-end flow, including synthesis, place-and-route, and timing closure.

Conditions of employment

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1.5 year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months, followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2.5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, increasing from €3059 to €3881 gross per month from the first year to the fourth year based on a fulltime contract (38 hours), plus 8% holiday allowance and an end-of-year bonus of 8.3%.

As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills.

The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.