Henry L
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at University of Pennsylvania (UPenn)
Expertise
Electrical Engineering, Circuit Design, Electricity and Magnetism, Integrated Circuits, Integrated Photonics
Bio
I have been fascinated by electronics since high school and built a Tesla coil from scratch as a physics project. I completed my undergraduate and masters degree at MIT, focusing specifically on analog electronics. After my masters program, I headed to Silicon Valley, where I worked full-time at Cypress Semiconductor (now Infineon Technologies) designing integrated circuits for WiFi chips. I am now a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania focusing on mixed signal electronic-photonic integrated circuit design. While not pursing academic endeavors, I enjoy playing violin, running, camping, and working on personal projects. I have a fascination for clocks and am currently working on a custom nixie clock that uses old neon tubes to display the time. I am also a dog lover, and own a rescued labradoodle named Hank!Project ideas
How to design as an engineer
To an engineer, the value of pi is 3. When you design something as an engineer, how do you know what approximations to make, specifications to meet, and parts to use? The process of building something from scratch can be a daunting one, but with proper assumptions and approximations, seemingly intractable problems can meet tenable solutions. In this project, you will come up with a unique engineering problem, set the specifications for the system you wish to design, and implement it using parts that meet your design specifications. The engineering design process can be applied to any type of engineering: mechanical, electrical, computer, aerospace, just to name a few!
Survey paper on state-of-the-art integrated circuits
With the rise of AI and necessity for compute power, integrated circuits have become the backbone of data manipulation. To meet strict energy and density demands, circuits have been miniaturized, traditionally following Moore's law but often employing new technology advancements (such as integrated photonics) to make order-of-magnitude improvements in compute power, speed, and/or energy efficiency. This project would survey state-of-the-art chip architectures, comparing and contrasting advantages and disadvantages of certain technologies. From this project, the student would gain an understanding of the silicon technology currently driving the AI revolution and powering the tools and devices we use everyday.
