News

Houbo and Chris’s paper titled “FoundaRF: A Physics-Informed Foundation Model Framework for Radio-Frequency Passive Components” has been accepted to ICCAD 2026. This paper presents a foundation model framework that unifies passive layout modeling across diverse layout structures and technologies. Congratulations Houbo, Chris, and our collaborators at UT Austin!

Our tutorial paper titled "Doherty Power Amplifiers: Fundamentals and Recent Advances" has been accepted to IEEE Solid-State Circuits Mag. (SSC-M). This paper is adapted from Dr. Chi's 2026 ISSCC tutorial, offering a comprehensive review of the Doherty PA, from its foundational principles to the latest silicon implementations.

Yueqi and Houbo’s paper titled “RF-Agent: A Practical Framework for Building Language Agents for RFIC Design” has been accepted to ICLAD 2026. Congratulations!

Our preprint on a high-channel-count neural interface is now online. We developed an ASIC featuring 5,376 simultaneous recording channels, in-pixel amplification, full-bandwidth recording (20 kS/s per channel), multiplexed ADCs (12 bits), and on-chip stimulation. In collaboration with Prof. Chong Xie’s group, we demonstrated high-density flexible probe integration and in vivo recordings in rats. Congratulations to Yingying, who led this multi-year effort spanning chip design, chip-probe integration, system miniaturization, and animal experiments!
Update in August 2026: This manuscript has been accepted to npj Biomedical Innovations.

Hao and Yaolong’s ISSCC 2025 paper received the ISSCC Lewis Winner Outstanding Paper Award. Hao is also a co-first author of our ISSCC 2024 paper that won the same award. Congratulations on this back-to-back achievement!

Qiang’s paper has been accepted to ISSCC 2026. It presents a wireless physical-layer security solution, capable of defending against both off-axis and main-beam eavesdropping. Congratulations Qiang!

Dr. Chi organized a Special Session “Generative AI for At-Scale and Unconventional Analog/RFIC Design and Automation” at ICCAD 2025, and gave an invited talk titled “Multi-Agent Generative Synthesis for Analog/RF Circuit: from Scalable Topology Generation to Efficient Inverse Design.” This work is a collaboration with Prof. Weidong Cao’s group at George Washington University.

Houbo’s paper titled “MOTIF-RF: Multi-template On-chip Transformer Synthesis Incorporating Frequency-domain Self-transfer Learning for RFIC Design Automation” has been accepted to ASP-DAC 2026. This paper presents a new frequency-domain self-transfer learning technique that exploits correlations between adjacent frequency bands, leading to 30-50% improvement in S-parameter prediction accuracy. We further developed an inverse design framework and validated it across various impedance-matching tasks. These results advance the goal of AI-assisted “specs-to-GDS” automation for RFICs and provide designers with actionable tools for integrating AI into their workflows. Contratulations Houbo and our team!

Hao’s paper titled “Design and Analysis of a W-band Local Oscillator Generator With Cascaded Implicit Frequency Quintupling and Tripling” has been accepted to T-MTT. This is a journal extension of his CICC 2023 paper, which was the first to achieve >190 dBc/Hz FoM for LO generators around 100 GHz. This journal paper first delves into the fundamental trade-off in using a Class-F₂₃ VCO as an implicit frequency tripler. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we prove that having strong 2nd and 3rd harmonics simultaneously is actually detrimental for the fundamental VCO’s FoM. To address this, Hao proposes a new VCO topology that enables implicit harmonic extraction without FoM degradation, along with a new third harmonic enhancement technique through 2nd harmonic control in injection-locked oscillators. A must-read if you work on mmWave frequency generation circuits or VCOs. Congratulations! Well done, Hao!

Congratulations to Dr. Yaolong Hu and Dr. Qiang Zhou! Yaolong’s research spans from building block innovations (TCAS-I 2023, IMS 2021) to full transceiver designs (JSSC 2024, CICC 2021 Best Student Paper Award) and more recently, RF design automation (DAC 2025, IMS 2024). Qiang has led pioneering work in wireless physical-layer security and developed two security systems tailored for low-power IoT devices (T-MTT 2024, ICC 2024, ISSCC 2021) and mmWave beamformers (T-MTT 2025). Both of their research were recognized with the prestigious SSCS Predoctoral Achievement Award. As part of the first batch of students, along with Xiaohan and Yingying, they have shaped the research DNA of our group, for which I’m deeply grateful.
Yaolong has joined Marvell, working on cutting-edge 2-nm chip designs. Qiang is staying with us as a postdoc while actively exploring academic opportunities. I’m incredibly proud of what both of you have achieved and cannot wait to see what’s next!

Houbo has been selected as a DAC Young Fellow and also received the IMS/RFIC Travel Grant. Gerald received the Hershel M. Rich Invention Award for his patent on non-invasive ICP sensing. Yingying received the Ralph Budd Award for Best Ph.D. Thesis in the School of Engineering. Congratulations to all of you on these well-deserved honors!

Yingying will be joining Washington University in St. Louis as a tenure-track assistant professor this summer. Congratulations Yingying! We look forward to seeing all the amazing work that will come out of your group. Here is her website.

Xiaohan and Hao’s ISSCC 2024 paper received the ISSCC Lewis Winner Outstanding Paper Award. Congratulations Xiaohan and Hao!

Yaolong and Hao’s paper titled “AdreamDCO: AI-Driven Robust and Efficient Design Automation for Digitally Controlled Oscillators” has been accepted to DAC 2025. In Collaboration with Prof. Weidong Cao’s group, this paper presents an end-to-end, automated design flow for RF oscillators from specs to GDS. Congratulations Yaolong, Hao, and our collaborative team!

Hang, Hao, and Xiaohan’s paper titled “A Packaged D-band Transmitter with a Multifeed Lens Antenna Achieving 25.3dBm Single-element EIRP for 2-D Scalable Arrays” has been accepted to CICC 2025. This paper presents a TX-antenna co-design methodology to drastically increase DC-to-EIRP efficiency in the D band. Congratulations!

Yaolong and Qiang won the 2025 IEEE SSCS Predoctoral Achievement Award. Congratulations!

Congratulations to Dr. Yingying Fan on earning her PhD! Her thesis is titled “Interfacing the Brain: High-Channel-Count Neural Recording and Minimally Invasive Brain Stimulation ASICs.” Yingying is truly a once-in-a-decade talent – she has both deep expertise in analog/RF chip design and exceptional system-level implementation skills. Over the past five years, Yingying worked on several innovative in-vivo (ISSCC 2024) and in-vitro neural modulation (T-BioCAS 2021, ISSCC 2021) and brain sensing (T-BioCAS 2024, ISSCC 2024) systems. She also made significant contributions to a few side projects (JNE 2021, BioCAS 2023, Neuron 2020). Her research has been widely recognized, such as being named an MIT EECS Rising Star and receiving the SSCS Predoctoral Achievement Award, MTT-S Graduate Fellowship, CASS Pre-Doctoral Grant (the only individual I know who has received fellowships from three IEEE societies!) Yingying will stay with the group as a post-doc and is actively looking for opportunities in academia.

Qiang’s paper titled “A Millimeter-Wave Antenna Subset Modulation Transmitter Array for Low-Overhead Physical-Layer Security Against Wireless Eavesdropping Attacks” has been accepted to T-MTT. In Collaboration with Prof. Kaiyuan Yang’s group, this paper presents a physical-layer security solution to protect mmWave TX against eavesdropping attacks by sending scrambled, false information in directions away from the target RX. Congratulations Qiang!

Two papers have been accepted to ISSCC 2025: a compact 28-GHz front-end module and an ultra-wideband 9-to-37-GHz LO generator. Congratulations to our Team!

Gerald and Yingying’s paper titled “An Ultrasonic Transceiver for Non-Invasive Intracranial Pressure Sensing” has been accepted to T-BioCAS (ISSCC 2024 Special Issue). It presents a new ICP sensing methodology based on ultrasound, along with its low-power silicon implementation and proof-of-concept demo. Congratulations Gerald and Yingying!

Xiaohan and Hao’s paper titled “A Millimeter-Wave Four-Way Doherty Power Amplifier With Over-GHz Modulation Bandwidth” has been accepted to JSSC (ISSCC 2024 Special Issue). It presents a systematic approach to extending a conventional two-way Doherty PA to N ways, along with a high-speed adaptive biasing circuit. Congratulations Xiaohan and Hao!

Yingying is awarded as an MIT Rising Star in EECS. Congratulations Yingying!

Congratulations to Xiaohan on successfully defending his PhD! His thesis is titled “Advanced Millimeter-wave Doherty Power Amplifier Architectures for 5G Communications and Beyond.” Xiaohan is the PA guru in our group — he demonstrated three pioneering Doherty PA prototypes at RFIC 2022 (Best Paper Award Finalists), CICC 2023, and ISSCC 2024, with three extended journals (JSSC 2023, T-MTT 2024, and JSSC 2024). He also made significant contributions to other projects in our group, such as the 28-GHz hybrid beamformer at CICC 2021 (Best Student Paper Award) and JSSC 2024, D-band phased array at RFIC 2023 (Industry Paper Award Finalist), and PA design automation at IMS 2024 (Advanced Practice Paper Award Finalist). Xiaohan will join a mmWave IC startup after graduation — best of luck with this exciting new venture!

Dr. Chi gave an invited talk at pSemi/Murata, presenting RISE Lab’s recent research on passive network design innovations and how these innovations unlock unprecedented performance and new functionalities for transceiver building blocks. Slides

Yaolong and Xiaohan’s paper titled “A 28-GHz Hybrid Beamforming Transmitter With Spatial Notch Steering Enabling Concurrent Dual Data Streams for 5G MIMO Applications” has been accepted to JSSC. This paper presents a new spatial notch steering scheme with low hardware and computational costs, aiming to suppress spatial interference for multi-user MIMO. Congratulations Yaolong and Xiaohan!

Congratulations to Yingying for winning the Nettie S. Autrey Fellowship (sole recipient from the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Engineering)! Also congratulations to Bill for receiving the James S. Waters Creativity Award!

Yingying is awarded the 2024 IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) Pre-Doctoral Grant. This is Yingying’s third IEEE society graduate fellowship award. Congratulations Yingying!

Yaolong’s paper titled “Automated mmWave Power Amplifier Design Flow and a 28-GHz Design Example in 45-nm CMOS SOI” has been accepted to IMS 2024. This paper is also selected as an Advanced Practice Paper Award Finalist. Congratulations Yaolong!

Bill and Qiang’s paper titled “Lightweight Machine Learning and Embedded Security Engine for Physical-Layer Identification of Wireless IoT Nodes” has been accepted to 2024 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC). In Collaboration with Prof. Kaiyuan Yang’s group, this paper builds upon our recent physical-layer security work of using PUF-controlled spectral regrowth as an RF fingerprint. We further developed lightweight ML-based feature extraction to achieve reliable identification when varying the distance between TX and RX. This also marks the second paper in our group that is first-authored by an undergraduate student. Congratulations Bill and Qiang!

Yaolong received the ISSCC Student Travel Grant Award, and Xiaohan received the SSCS Predoctoral Achievement Award. Congratulations Yaolong and Xiaohan!

Yingying is selected as one of the 2024 SSCS Rising Stars. Congratulations Yingying!

Three papers have been accepted to ISSCC 2024, including a mmWave four-way Doherty PA, a magnetic neural stimulator, and an ultrasonic transceiver. Congratulations to our Team!

Gerald’s paper titled “A Complementary Pseudo-Resistor with Leakage Current Self-Compensation for Biopotential Amplifiers” has been accepted to BioCAS 2023. We will present a simple yet effective pseudo-resistor topology for neural recording amplifiers. Congratulations Gerald and Yingying!

Xiaohan’s paper titled “A Millimeter-Wave Watt-Level Doherty Power Amplifier in Silicon” has been accepted to T-MTT. This is a journal extension of Xiaohan’s 2023 CICC paper. It presents a multifunctional PA network based on an extended rat-race coupler, enabling parallel Doherty load modulation and series power combining simultaneously. Congratulations Xiaohan!

Qiang’s paper titled “Physical-Layer Identification of Wireless IoT Nodes Through PUF-Controlled Transmitter Spectral Regrowth” has been accepted to T-MTT. This is a journal extension of Qiang’s 2021 ISSCC paper. We propose a slight modification to the TX frontend, allowing for physical-layer identification (a.k.a., RF fingerprinting) with greatly improved security performance. Congratulations Qiang!

Yaolong’s paper titled “A 27.5–46.2-GHz Broadband Low Noise Amplifier With IP3 Enhancement” has been accepted to MWTL. Built upon Yaolong’s prior research on extending LNA bandwidth, this paper focuses on IP3 linearity enhancement, achieving state-of-the-art LNA bandwidth, linearity, and FoM simultaneously. Congratulations Yaolong!

Dr. Chi received the Rice School of Engineering Teaching + Research Excellence Award.

Jack’s multifeed rectenna paper has been accepted to the Texas Wireless Symposium 2023! He also represented the ECE department and presented his work at the Shapiro Showcase, which features the top undergraduate researchers across all disciplines at Rice. Congratulations Jack!

Our collaborative paper with Samsung Research America titled “A 140GHz RF Beamforming Phased-Array Receiver Supporting >20dB IRR with 8GHz Channel Bandwidth at Low IF in 22nm FDSOI CMOS” has been accepted to RFIC 2023. This paper is also selected as a 2023 IEEE RFIC Best Industry Paper Award Finalist. Congratulations Yaolong, Xiaohan, and our collaborative team!

Dr. Chi received the NSF CAREER award.

Jack is awarded the prestigious 2023 IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) Undergraduate Scholarship. Congratulations Jack!

Yaolong’s paper titled “A Systematic Approach to Designing Broadband Millimeter-Wave Cascode Common-Source With Inductive Degeneration Low Noise Amplifiers” has been accepted to T-CAS I. This paper presents a systematic yet intuitive approach that can turn a conventional narrow-band mmWave LNA into a broadband implementation by only updating component values without changing the classic inductive degeneration topology. Congratulations Yaolong!

Xiaohan’s paper titled “A Millimeter-Wave Three-Way Doherty Power Amplifier for 5G NR OFDM” has been accepted to JSSC (RFIC 2022 Special Issue). This paper presents the design guideline of a new three-way Doherty network to enable efficiency enhancement up to ~10dB back-off for 5G NR OFDM. Congratulations Xiaohan!

Hao’s paper titled “An 86.5-105.6GHz LO Generator with Cascaded Implicit Frequency Quintupling and Tripling Achieving -107.7dBc/Hz Phase Noise and 191.2dBc/Hz FoM at 1MHz Offset” has been accepted to CICC 2023. This LO generator achieves record phase noise performance and FoM at ~100GHz. Congratulations Hao!

Xiaohan’s paper titled “A 38GHz Power-Combined Doherty PA Based on an Extended Rat-Race Coupler Achieving 27.5dBm Saturated Power and 15.0% Efficiency at 6dB Back-Off” has been accepted to CICC 2023. Congratulations Xiaohan!

Xiaohan and Yingying received the 2023 ISSCC Student Travel Grant Award. Congratulations Xiaohan and Yingying!

Xiaohan’s 38GHz three-way Doherty PA paper is selected as a 2022 IEEE RFIC Best Student Paper Award Finalist. Xiaohan also received the NSF Student Registration Award for IEEE RFIC. Congratulations Xiaohan!

Gerald received the Rice IBB Travel Grant. Congratulations Gerald!

Xiaohan’s paper titled “A 38GHz Deep Back-Off Efficiency Enhancement PA with Three-Way Doherty Network Synthesis Achieving 11.3dBm Average Output Power and 14.7% Average Efficiency for 5G NR OFDM” has been accepted to RFIC 2022. This design demonstrates the highest 10dB back-off efficiency among reported silicon PAs operating above 30GHz, particularly suitable for 5G NR OFDM. Congratulations Xiaohan!

Yingying received the 2022 IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Predoctoral Achievement Award. Congratulations Yingying!

Yingying’s paper titled “An Integrated Microheater Array With Closed-Loop Temperature Regulation Based on Ferromagnetic Resonance of Magnetic Nanoparticles” is accepted by IEEE T-BioCAS (ISSCC 2021 Special Issue). This is a collaborative work with Dr. Gang Bao’s group at Rice BioE. Congratulations Yingying and the team!

Yingying received the 2021 Cadence Women in Technology Scholarship. Congratulations Yingying!

Yaolong’s broadband LNA paper is selected as a 2021 IEEE IMS Advanced Practice Paper Award Finalist. Congratulations Yaolong!

Yingying received the IEEE RFIC’21 NSF Student Conference Registration Award. Congratulations Yingying!

Qiang won the Student Research Competition Award (1st place) at the IEEE Texas Symposium on Wireless & Microwave Circuits and Systems. Congratulations Qiang!

Yaolong and Xiaohan’s paper received the Best Student Paper Award at IEEE CICC. Congratulations Yaolong and Xiaohan!

Yaolong’s paper titled “A 27–46-GHz Low Noise Amplifier With Dual-Resonant Input Matching and A Transformer-Based Broadband Output Network” has been accepted to IMS 2021 and is selected as one of the top IMS submissions for inclusion into the IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters (MWCL) special issue. Congratulations Yaolong!

Yingying is awarded the prestigious 2021 IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) Graduate Fellowship for Medical Applications. Congratulations Yingying!

Yaolong and Xiaohan’s paper titled “A 28GHz Hybrid-Beamforming Transmitter Array Supporting Concurrent Dual Data Steams and Spatial Notch Steering for 5G MIMO” has been accepted to CICC 2021. Congratulations Yaolong and Xiaohan!

Yingying’s paper has been accepted to ISSCC 2021 (Biomedical Devices, Circuits, and Systems Session). She will present an integrated thermal actuation/sensing array with a sub-millimeter spatial resolution through efficient and localized heating of magnetic nanoparticles at GHz microwave frequency. This platform would be widely applicable in non-invasive biomedical heating applications. Congratulations Yingying!

Qiang’s paper has been accepted to ISSCC 2021 (Innovations in Low-power & Secure IoT Session). In collaboration with Prof. Kaiyuan Yang’s group, we explore PUF-controlled transmitter spectral regrowth as a unique radio signature for low-power physical-layer device identification, similar to how people can recognize individuals from their unique voice features. Congratulations Qiang and the team!

Our collaborative paper with the Rice NeuroEngineering Team (Drs. Lan Luan, Jacob Robinson, Behnaam Aazhang, Kaiyuan Yang, and Chong Xie) titled “Recent Advances in Electrical Neural Interface Engineering: Minimal Invasiveness, Longevity, and Scalability” is accepted by Neuron! This review paper highlights latest advances in electrical neural interfaces, and our group contributed to the integrated electronics section.
Congratulations Yingying and our collaborative team!

Katrina received the NSF Student Registration Award for IEEE RFIC/IMS 2020. Congratulations Katrina!

Robert and Katrina received the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) from the Rice Undergraduate Office of Research and Inquiry (UORI). Congratulations Robert and Katrina!

Dr. Chi served as the TPC co-chair for the 2020 IEEE Texas Symposium on Wireless & Microwave Circuits and Systems.

Dr. Chi is awarded the George R. Brown Teaching Grant for his undergraduate course ELEC 305 Introduction to Physical Electronics!

RISE Lab is awarded the Rice University’s InterDisciplinary Excellence Award (IDEA) fund to develop electronics-biology-machine learning hybrid systems for health care applications. We will collaborate with Dr. Gang Bao in BioE and Dr. Richard Baraniuk in ECE.

Dr. Taiyun Chi visited TAMU ECE and gave an invited talk on Antenna-Electronics Co-Design. Thank you Dr. Sebastian Hoyos for the invitation.

Dr. Chi founded the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Houston Chapter and serves as the Chapter Chair. We will organize a series of Distinguished Lectures and social events. Please stay tuned!

Dr. Chi is invited to serve as a Technical Program Committee (TPC) member of the IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Conference on Hardware and Systems for 5G and Beyond (IMC-5G).

Dr. Taiyun Chi joins the faculty of Rice ECE.