Two 4-year doctoral student positions are open in the field of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering / Electronics (linearization of the mm-wave integrated phased arrays and minimizing nonlinear distortion in multiphase systems)

Applications are invited for a full-time doctoral student position for a maximum of four years, starting at the earliest on 01.09.2019. Research is supervised by Prof. Timo Rahkonen and Dr. Janne Aikio in the Circuits and Systems (CAS) research unit, Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. The positions are started by a six month trial period.

University of Oulu and 6GENESIS

The University of Oulu (http://www.oulu.fi/english/) is one of the largest universities in Finland, with approximately 15 000 students and 3 000 employees. The University of Oulu Graduate School (UniOGS) (http://www.oulu.fi/uniogs/) provides the framework and conditions for high-quality, research-driven doctoral education at the University of Oulu, and field-specific doctoral training is provided by its multidisciplinary doctoral programmes. Under this framework, the Information Technology and Electrical Engineering Doctoral Programme (ITEE-DP) (http://www.oulu.fi/uniogs/dp/iteedp) offers doctoral training in Electrical Engineering, Communications Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering and Information Processing Science.

This research is closely tied to the 6Genesis project in University of Oulu. 6Genesis (https://www.oulu.fi/6gflagship/) is a flagship project funded by the Finnish Academy, aimed in developing the implementations and services for future 6^th generation radio systems.  

Research area of the positions

Due the extremely challenging demand to 100 times the data rate in 5G massive parallelism and wide bandwidths are required in transceivers to increase the overall throughput. Such wide bandwidths are only available at millimeter-wave frequencies. Due to the reduced antenna size and increased losses the array gain is increased by using massive phased arrays with analog beam-formers. As a result, each antenna has a low power PA, which complicates the linearization of the complete transmitter substantially. The open PhD student positions aim in searching efficient means for linearizing 6G transceivers.

Two PhD positions is open over a general theme of
Linearising the non-linear reponses in multi-phase RF transceiver systems

This includes task both in the design of phased and linearized RF power amplifiers (PA), and system-related studies considering entire beam-formers, and other parallel and phased systems, like time-interleaved A/D and D/A structures.

First theme is related into the development of phase shifter based efficiency enhanced RF power amplifier structures and wideband analog-assisted digital predistortion (DPD) concept at millimeter-wave frequencies in multiphase beamforming transmitters. Here the idea is to utilize the phasing between different power amplifiers (PAs) or sub-PAs to achieve partial cancellation of the distortion products. Here, expertise in RF power amplifier design in 5-30 GHz range is considered as a big advantage.

Second theme is approaching the same effect at the system level: the behavior of cancelling or coherent summing of non-linear distortion contributions in complete transceiver systems and time-interleaved systems is modeled and carefully analyzed. This topic includes analyzing the cancellation requirements of the distortion contributions in beam-forming RX and TX systems, and in time-interleaved systems like high-speed analog-to-digital converters. The topic also includes development of transistor level linearizer structures.

The positions are supervised by Prof. Timo Rahkonen and Dr. Janne Aikio. The place of work is CAS Research Unit, University of Oulu, headed by Professor Timo Rahkonen. CAS research unit is famous of integrated laser scanners and digital time-of-flight circuits and applications. In addition, CAS has solid experience in optoelectronic circuits and especially RF electronics and RFIC design.

Requirements for a doctoral student

To successfully occupy the position of a doctoral student, the candidate must possess a Master’s degree or an equivalent degree (e.g. licentiate) preferably in electrical engineering. In addition, knowledge in radio frequency electronics and integrated circuit design is required.  Degree must have been completed with good grades by 16.8.2019 (or latest before the job contract starts). Ability to pursue independent research and excellent writing and fluency in English is expected. The doctoral student position is intended for an Early Stage Researcher (ESR) who, according to the ”European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers”, is defined as a researcher in the first four years (full-time equivalent) of his/her research activity, including the period of research training. Applicants will be either starting their doctoral training or will have completed no more than two full years of training (adjusted for possible previous part-time status) at the time the position is filled. The selected candidate will carry out his/her doctoral studies in the Information Technology and Electrical Engineering Doctoral Programme of the University of Oulu Graduate School (UniOGS) and must meet the minimal requirements to receive doctoral study rights as defined in http://www.oulu.fi/uniogs/requirements_for_admission.

Salary

The salary of the selected doctoral student will be set on levels 2 – 4 of the national salary scale for the teaching and research staff of Finnish universities. In addition, a supplementary remuneration will be given for personal achievement and performance (max. 50 %). The total salary for these levels (before tax) currently ranges from about 2350 to 3800 Euros/month for full-time employment.

Application

Applications must be submitted using the electronic application form by 16.8.2019, 23:59 (Finnish local time), with the following attachments as three separate pdf files:

1. Complete CV containing contact information of at least two referees (Max. size limit of the attachment: 5 Mbytes)
2. Motivation letter (maximum 1 page) describing prior knowledge and research interests and career plans (1-2 pages; max. size limit of the attachment: 2 Mbytes).
3. Certificates/Diplomas: Scanned electronic copies of diplomas and transcripts of the records of relevant previous degrees. If the original documents are not in English, Finnish or Swedish, each document must be accompanied by an official certified translation into English or Finnish. (Max. size limit of the attachment: 2 Mbytes)

Other relevant information

The eligible applicants fitting best in the research profile expected for the position may be invited to an on-site or remote interview. All applicants will be notified when the selection process is completed.

Contact

Dr. Janne Aikio, e-mail: janne.aikio(at)oulu.fi