Department of Electronic Engineering
University of Seville

El The Electronic Engineering Group (GIE, TIC-192) was born in 2003, in a call for research groups of the 3rd Andalousian Research Plan (III PAI), when its components splitted away from the Electronic Technology Group (GTE, TIC-109). Since then, the Electronic Engineering Group has received the "excellence award" in succesive editions of this call (2003 and 2004) with the maximum score (25 points). The GIE, based on the Department of Electronic Engineering (School of Engineering, University of Sevilla, Spain), brings together 16 researchers, 9 of them with a Ph.D. degree.

The GIE research line of the GIE is centered in the Design of Electronic and Microelectronic Circuits and Systems with application to communication systems, industrial control and aeronautics. Based on the background of some components of the GIE in microelectronics design with industrial applications, acquired in the early 90s, a fundamental part of the research in the group is focused on digital, analog and mixed-signal microelectronic design. In the digital field, the main contributions of our group are in the analysis and debugging of faults in large dimension circuits using proprietary platforms based on large FPGA's, and in the design of IP's for multicarrier communication systems (OFDM). In the analog and mixed-signal field, our speciality is in low voltage, low power design of circuits and systems, ranging from simple cells to complex systems with applications to communication.

We would like to mention the high financing received by our research group, having participated in special actions of the III and IV Framework Program (GAME and FUSE), RTD projects in the IV and V Framework Program, some projects financed the European Space Agency, and some projects with national funding, both public (National Plan of Research and Development, and PROFIT) and private. This financing has allowed the GIE to count with complete labs for characterization of electronics components and circuits, and for communication systems.

The GIE boasts of a high scientific productivity, with an average of more than 10 papers in journals and transactions of high-impact index, like the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuirs, and the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems (I and II), in the last four years. Some of the members of GIE are usual members of the Program Committees of some of the most prestigious International Conferences and Symposia. We woull also like to mention the recent contributions to the IEEE Int. Solid-State Circuits Conference (2004 and 2005), which is considered to be the "state of the art" of microelectronics design, being the first Spanish group in this Conference since 1986.

The GIE maintains an active collaboration with other well-known research groups, such as the Analog and Mixed-Signal Center led by Prof. Sánchez-Sinencio (Texas A-M, USA), the Department of Electrical Engineering led by Prof. Ramírez-Angulo (NMSU, USA), the Analog Processing Signal Group led by Prof. Carlosena (UPNA, Spain), the Universitary Institute of Applied Microelectronics led by Prof. Núñez (IUMA, Spain), and the CEIT of San Sebastian (Spain). All this activity coexists with an active technology transfer to industry, as the GIE is usual partner of Spanish (Telvent, SIDSA, Tecnológica) and multinational (ATMEL, AMS, ChipIdea, Philips, Xilinx,…) companies involved in electronic and microelectronic design.

Finally, the GIE is still in an early stage of development, as 35% of its members are pursuing their Ph.D. degree, and only one third of their members have a tenure position. As a consequence, a prioritary objective of the research group is the promotion of its young components.