Professor Khalil featured in IEEE Spectrum Article

Are analog circuits on their way out?, asks a new IEEE Spectrum article by Rachel Courtland.

“Granted, nature is analog and so, too, are the circuits that drive wireless communication. But analog devices are generally harder to miniaturize and have slowly been ceding ground to digital components. An experimental new radio chip developed by Intel could signal that the trend is accelerating.”

Waleed Khalil, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State, is one of the experts featured.

“Bringing processors with full digital radios to the market may have more to do with economics than technology. Initial development costs could be higher, and RF standards are less forgiving when it comes to inevitable variations in manufacturing, says Waleed Khalil, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State University. Digital processors that underperform can be set aside and sold for less. But with RF, if you have “a very small degradation in performance, nobody will buy your products,” Khalil says. Consumers may have to pay a considerable premium for more tightly integrated chips.”

Read the complete article online at http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/wireless/wifi-radio-takes-a-digital-turn