ECS

Academic Staff in the Electronic Systems and Devices Group

Dr Peter Wilson is proud to be part of the ‘rock solid, high quality’ Electronic Systems Design research group within the School of Electronics & Computer Science (ECS). He is very much a team player and an outward focused man who is making major contributions to the electronics industry.

Peter first became interested in electronics as a child when his Dad, who was also an electronics engineer, was fixing the television and Peter learned that the reason that the TV didn’t work was because a capacitor had blown up. This bit of information inspired him and he could soon be found tinkering away in his bedroom making an electronic drum kit and programming a Sinclair ZX81 (with the 16KByte “extra” memory).

He grew up in Edinburgh and did Highers in Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, English, German and Music and learned to play the bagpipes – winning the Scottish, British, European and “Champion of Champions” titles with the Torphichen and Bathgate Pipe Band in 1993. His growing interest in electronics took him to Heriot-Watt University where he embarked on a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

Peter has a very practical approach to his research and is very focused on how it can be used to tighten up industry practices. ‘One of the things I do a lot of in my work with industry is taking theoretical issues and trying to make them a reality,’ he commented.

His time spent in industry prepared him well for this challenge. When he graduated, he joined Ferranti in Edinburgh, which is now BAE Systems, to work on developing navigation and radar systems for aircraft. He left there in 1994 to work for Analogy, an American company which specialised in electronic design automation software (the Saber simulator – now owned and marketed by Synopsys).

In 1999, Peter decided to do his PhD and came to the University of Southampton to do it on Modelling Magnetic Components in Electric Circuits. He was then offered a post as a research fellow in the School of Engineering Sciences where he worked on developing micro-grids within communities so that they could share renewable energy resources. He joined ECS in 2002 continuing this work and embarked on an EPSRC funded project to make his head of group’s house energy efficient and incorporate renewable energy sources.

He came up with an intelligent fuse box which could be installed in the house in parallel with existing domestic wiring and allow users to configure it to suit their needs for optimal energy usage.

The idea is that the fuse box would adapt to the outside environment and energy usage profiles, and become predictive so that the box would begin to learn and respond to different scenarios, so that it makes the best use of energy – both renewable sources and from the utility. For example, the system would provide emergency power in the event of a local power outage enabling essential appliances to continue to be operated (telephones, refrigerators).

‘We set out to keep this initiative as simple as possible so that it would be accessible to the end-user,’ Peter commented. ‘Ordinary people don’t want to get involved in huge micro grids; they just want to be self-sufficient and have a reliable supply. The intelligent fuse box will enable this – this is technology that is intended to be obtained and used by average domestic electricity users.’

The intelligent fuse box is an example of a mixed-signal systems design, an area which has interested Peter since his early days in industry. He currently lectures on analogue electronics, integrated circuit design, cryptography, and System-on-Chip design techniques and is leading the School’s new MSc in system on a chip.

He believes that Europe and the UK are lagging behind in chip design technology and he is working hard to change the situation. He commented: ‘There is currently a window of opportunity for UK researchers and the UK Integrated Circuit (IC) industry to work together, and by doing this, we have a fighting chance of remaining at the forefront of analogue & mixed-signal IC design in the future.’

Peter would like to set up a standard modeling environment for mixed signal chip design and the associated test and documentation. He is currently working on developing a design technique for maximizing the yield of mixed signal chips, by using this as a fundamental parameter in the design process. This is becoming a critical issue for chip designers working in ever reducing process technology sizes. If his research is successful, this will be very good news for the electronics industry as it will significantly increase yield, currently an increasing problem for the mixed-signal IC industry.

‘Mixed signal chips, which fit in a variety of devices such as ‘phones, PDAa, and a huge array of consumer electronic items, have to operate with much tighter constraints than other chips,’ commented Peter. ‘Our challenge is to refine the current process of mixed-signal chip design and to design a system in which all the individual pieces work together successfully.’

The manufacturing process is currently extremely expensive. Designers create new chip designs and simulate how they will operate . The individual chips are cut out of silicon wafers and undergo electrical tests to ensure that they are working currently. It is only at this point that the designer often realises that some of the chips do not work.

‘Our aim is to improve the yield of each silicon wafer,’ said Peter. ‘We will take a basic circuit design and we will then try different variations to improve the quality of the design.’

Peter welcomes the many challenges ahead. ‘I am working with some of the world’s top people,’ he said. ‘In terms of Electronic Design Automation (EDA), our group is the best in the UK by a long distance. Our students are taught by experts in a wide variety of disciplines with industry experience.’

If Peter had an endless supply of time and money, he would design an automatic chip design system or build a human brain. He is very excited about the latter so watch this space…