Asad Ali Abidi | |
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| Born | (1956-07-12)July 12, 1956 (age 69) |
| Alma mater | Imperial College, London University of California, Berkeley |
| Known for | RF CMOS RF circuit modeling |
| Awards | IEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits (2008) IEEE Third Millennium Medal IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award Member of theNational Academy of Engineering |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Electrical Engineering Electronics engineering |
| Institutions | Bell Laboratories University of California, Los Angeles Lahore University of Management Sciences |
| Doctoral advisor | Robert G. Meyer |
Asad Ali Abidi (born July 12, 1956)[1] is a Pakistani-Americanelectrical engineer. He serves as a tenuredprofessor atUniversity of California, Los Angeles, and is the inaugural holder of theAbdus Salam Chair at theLahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).[2] He is best known for pioneeringRF CMOS technology during the late 1980s to early 1990s. As of 2008, theradio transceivers in allwireless networking devices and modernmobile phones are mass-produced as RF CMOS devices.
Abidi received hisB.S. from theImperial College London followed by aM.S. andPhD from theUniversity of California, Berkeley in 1981. He worked as an electrical engineer withBell Labs and in January 1985 joinedUCLA as atenured academic. In 2007, he left for a three-year sabbatical to work as a founding dean of the engineering school atLahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and returned toLos Angeles in 2009.[3] In 2017, he was named as the inaugural holder of the Abdus Salam Chair at LUMS.[4]
Abidi is a prominent academic and is a member of theNational Academy of Engineering andThe World Academy of Sciences. He received theIEEE Donald O. Pederson Award in Solid-State Circuits in 2008. In 2015,UC, Berkeley recognised him as a distinguished alumnus for his contributions to the theory and practice of analog andRF circuits.[5][6][7]
Born and raised inPakistan, Abidi was educated till matriculation atCadet College Hasan Abdal, Pakistan, completed his high school from Dudley College of Technology, UK, and gained a B.Sc. degree (with first-class honours) in electrical engineering atImperial College,London, in 1976.[8] Later he attendedUniversity of California, Berkeley; he gained an M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering in 1978 and a Ph.D. in 1981 under the supervision of Robert Meyer. Abidi is anIEEE Fellow and a member of the United StatesNational Academy of Engineering (NAE).[8][9] He joined LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences) School of Science and Engineering as its first dean.[10]
Since 1985, Abidi has worked atUCLA, where he is currently a Distinguished Chancellor's Professor.[8] From 1981 to 1984, he worked forBell Laboratories as a Member of Technical Staff at the Advanced LSI Development Laboratory. He was a Visiting Faculty Researcher atHewlett Packard Laboratories in 1989. He is one of only a few Pakistani-origin members of the NAE.[5] and was recognized as anISSCC top-ten author.[8]
While working at Bell and then UCLA, he pioneeredradio research inmetal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology and made seminal contributions toradio architecture based oncomplementary MOS (CMOS)switched-capacitor (SC) technology.[11] While working at Bell in the early 1980s, he worked on the development ofsub-micronMOSFET (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor)VLSI (verylarge-scale integration) technology at the Advanced LSI Development Lab, along with Marty Lepselter,George E. Smith and Harry Bol. As one of the fewcircuit designers at the lab, Abidi demonstrated the potential of sub-micronNMOSintegrated circuit technology in high-speedcommunication circuits, and developed the firstMOSamplifiers forGb/s data rates inoptical fiber receivers. Abidi's work was initially met with skepticism from proponents ofGaAs andbipolar junction transistors, the dominant technologies for high-speed circuits at the time. In 1985 he joinedUCLA, where he pioneeredRF CMOS technology during the late 1980s to early 1990s. His work changed the way in whichRF circuits would be designed, away from discretebipolar transistors and towardsCMOSintegrated circuits.[12]
He was a visiting researcher atHP Labs for a year in 1989, during which time he investigatedA/D conversion at ultra-high speeds, before returning to UCLA and researching analogsignal chains fordisk driveread channels, high-speed A/D conversion, and analogCMOS circuits forsignal processing andcommunications.[12] Abidi, along with UCLA colleagues J. Chang and Michael Gaitan, demonstrated the first RF CMOSamplifier in 1993.[13][14] In 1995, Abidi used CMOS switched-capacitor technology to demonstrate the first direct-conversiontransceivers fordigital communications.[11]
In the late 1990s, the RF CMOS technology that he pioneered was widely adopted inwireless networking, asmobile phones began entering widespread use. As of 2008, theradio transceivers in all wireless networking devices and modern mobile phones are mass-produced as RF CMOS devices.[12]
Abidi served as the Program Secretary for the IEEEInternational Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) from 1984 to 1990, and was the General Chairman of theSymposium on VLSI Circuits in 1992.[citation needed] He was the Secretary of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Council from 1990 to 1991. From 1992 to 1995, he was the Editor-in-Chief of theIEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.[15]
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