□ A research team led by Professor Minyoung Song from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) presented ultra-compact and ultra-wideband (UWB) transmitter technology at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2026, the world’s most prestigious conference in the field of semiconductor circuits.
□ The ISSCC serves as a stage on which leading global semiconductor companies and research institutions showcase their latest technologies. It is widely referred to as the “Olympics of Semiconductors” because only research articles and papers demonstrating technical rigor and originality are accepted. The study presented by Professor Song’s team proposes a digital transmitter architecture that meets next-generation UWB communication standards while also markedly reducing size and power consumption.
□ UWB technology enables precise localization and high-speed data transmission by utilizing a wide frequency spectrum, but a major challenge has been complying with stringent global spectrum regulations (spectrum masks). It had been necessary to add complex circuitry to meet regulatory constraints earlier, which resulted in a fundamental performance trade-off, as the additional circuitry increased both chip area and power consumption.
□ To address these limitations, Professor Song’s team proposed a novel “digital-based waveform generation technique” that fully complies with spectrum regulations without the need for additional complex calibration circuits or filtering. This technique effectively suppresses the “sidelobe” phenomena—wherein radio emissions violate regulations and cause interference—while maximizing transmission efficiency.
□ The UWB transmitter developed by the research team achieved a circuit area of 0.0523 mm², one of the smallest in the world, demonstrating more than 9 times higher area efficiency compared with conventional transmitters. In addition, while operating at a low power consumption of 11.4 mW, it recorded a high level of spectrum utilization efficiency at 83.4%, demonstrating performance that meets all global radio regulations, including those of the Korea Communications Commission, Federal Communications Commission, European Telecommunications Standards Institute, and Association of Radio Industries and Businesses.
□ This achievement is immediately applicable across various fields, such as low-power Internet of Things devices, precision localization in smart home appliances, and next-generation short-range high-speed communication systems. In particular, it satisfies global regulatory requirements without additional cost and is thus regarded as a core technology for accelerating the widespread adoption of UWB technology.
□ “This research is significant in that it has resolved the longstanding challenges of radio regulation compliance and communication range limitations in UWB technology through a fundamental design-level innovation,” stated Professor Minyoung Song of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at DGIST. “The study is expected to have substantial academic value as well as strong industrial applicability by presenting a practical solution for next-generation ultra-low-power wireless systems.”
□ The research was funded as a part of the Basic Research Program (Outstanding Young Scientist Grant, Basic Research Laboratory) and the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program (Leading Convergence Technology Development for Neuroscience) supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea; the International Cooperative Development Program for Fundamental Technologies (Korea-EU Semiconductor R&D Cooperation); and the AI Star Fellowship Program of the Institute for Information Communication Technology Planning and Evaluation. The research findings were presented at ISSCC 2026, the world’s most prestigious conference in solid-state circuit design.
