CSEM VP Christian Enz Appointed Full Professor and Director of EPFL-IMT

CSEM announced that Prof. Dr. Christian Enz, current VP and head of the Integrated and Wireless Systems Division, has been appointed as full professor and director of the Microengineering Institute of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL-IMT). During a scientific career spanning more than 25 years, Dr. Enz has acquired a thorough knowledge of both the microengineering industry and the Swiss university sector.

Dr. Enz joined CSEM (Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology) in April 1999 to set up and manage a new R&D team active in the field of low-power radio-frequency (RF) integrated circuit (IC) design. He succeeded Prof. E. Vittoz as head of the Microelectronics Division in 2000.

During his time at CSEM, Dr. Enz created several successful new activities, including integrated systems for wireless communications, wireless sensor networks, wireless body area networks, RF IC design and MEMS-based radios. He also led the effort towards the development of ever more complex Systems-on-Chips (SoC).

He initiated the WiseNET project which took CSEM to its worldwide leading position in the field of ultra-low-power SoCs for wireless sensor networks. He further extended the center’s R&D activities in the field of ultra-low-power IC design and embedded systems, which led to the creation of what is now the Integrated and Wireless Systems Division.

More recently, he initiated a research activity in the new field of inexact digital circuit design as part of an international collaboration between CSEM, Rice University, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and UC Berkeley, that was widely reported in the press, particularly in the June 2, 2012 edition of The Economist.

Besides his management position at CSEM, since 1999 he has also been adjunct professor at EPFL, where he lectures and supervises students in the field of analog and RF IC design and advanced device modeling. He recently launched a joint project with Prof. Chenming Hu of UC Berkeley, working together aiming to make BSIM6 the new worldwide industry standard bulk MOSFET compact model.

His scientific interests and expertise are in the areas of low-power analog and RF IC design, wireless sensor networks, and the modeling of semiconductor devices. His contributions include the development of the internationally acclaimed EKV model for the design and simulation of low-current and low-voltage ICs; the development of new analytical models of noise for nanometric MOSFET; and the design of low-power and low-voltage CMOS analog and RF ICs for wireless communication, instrumentation, and biomedical applications. He is the author and co-author of more than 190 scientific papers and has contributed to numerous conference presentations and advanced engineering courses.

Prior to joining CSEM, Dr. Enz was principal senior engineer at Conexant (formerly Rockwell Semiconductor Systems), Newport Beach, CA, where he was responsible for the modeling and characterization of MOS transistors for RF applications. From 1992 to 1997 he was an assistant professor at EPFL, working in the field of low-power analog CMOS IC design and device modeling. In 1989 he co-founded Smart Silicon Systems SA (S3), where he developed several low-noise and low-power ICs, mainly for high-energy physics applications.

Dr. Enz has taken over from Prof. Nico de Rooij as director of EPFL’s Institute of Microengineering (IMT) in January 2013.