Circuit Design Group

At the chair of Circuit Design, microelectronic circuits are developed, tested and applied. These microchips often contain extremely sensitive, low noise amplifiers for capturing sensor data and blocks for further analog and digital signal processing. Some chips contain particle- or (single) photon-sensitive structures. The crucial analogue parts of such chips are designed completely manually. Complex digital blocks described by HDL languages are converted to a layout by a suitable tool chain and both parts are merged. The chips are fabricated in state-of-the-art CMOS technologies and commissioned by suited additional hardware (often FPGA boards) in the group.

Examples projects are readout and processing chips for particle detectors (e.g. see picture), single photon sensors for dark matter search or microscopy, hybrid pixel detectors for synchrotron X-ray detection at Eu-XFEL or ESRF or chips for state-of-the-art PET scanners.