Students Donghyeon Kim, Jaeyong Lee, Yeonwoo Lee, and Minsang Yoon from the School of Information, Communications & Electronics Engineering at the Catholic University of Korea (supervised by Professor Woo Doo-hyung) received the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association Award at the 26th Korea Semiconductor Design Contest held on October 23 at COEX, Seoul.

The contest, co-hosted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association, is the largest semiconductor design competition in Korea. Since its launch in 2000, it has aimed to enhance semiconductor design skills and foster creativity among university students majoring in semiconductor design.

△ With the advancement of high-resolution sensors, the need for high-performance ROICs capable of stably processing microcurrent signals has increased. However, conventional architectures faced limitations in reducing noise and maintaining both power efficiency and resolution during high-speed processing. To address this, the research team proposed a signal acquisition circuit based on a 2-step SS-ADC structure that achieves low power consumption, wide operating range, and high SNR simultaneously, utilizing a pixel-level ADC architecture.

Their design, titled “Signal Acquisition Circuit Using Pixel-Level 2-Step SS-ADC with Wide Operating Range and Low Power Consumption for Compact and High-Speed SWIR Camera Chips,” received high praise from judges.

△ By combining Dual-Stage Integration and Multiple Sampling, the team improved SNR while preventing saturation. The coarse-fine 2-step analog-to-digital conversion and time-division shared architecture enhanced processing speed, reliability, and power efficiency. They also succeeded in implementing the circuit within a limited pixel area, maximizing integration density.

The proposed circuit operates precisely even under conditions where visible observation is difficult—such as fog or smoke—and overcomes the limitations of conventional ROICs by achieving low power consumption, high SNR, wide dynamic range, and high-speed conversion. It also demonstrates strong potential for applications in compact drones, lightweight head-mounted displays (HMDs), and other advanced imaging systems.