Graduate students Lee Baek and Im Jeongseop from the Communications Circuits and Systems Laboratory, Division of Electronic Engineering (Advisor: Professor 임동구), received the IEEE CAS Tague Chapter Award at the 2026 International System-on-Chip Semiconductor Design Conference (ISOCC) for their semiconductor receiver design research for drone signal detection.

ISOCC is an international conference where semiconductor circuit design researchers from around the world share research findings and technologies. Experts from domestic and international universities, companies, and research institutions participate, and more than 40 companies and research organizations, including Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, ETRI, KETI, Cadence, and Synopsys, sponsor the event.

Leading the research, graduate student Lee Baek presented the paper "A Blocker-Tolerant Wideband Receiver Employing a Frequency-Selective Positive- and Negative-Capacitive-Feedback TIA for Drone Detection," which addresses the design of a wideband receiver for drone detection.

The research team focused on designing a receiver that detects drone signals at an early stage to respond to military threats involving drones and illegal filming. The key objective was to receive signals across a wide range of frequency bands while reducing susceptibility to strong interfering signals in the environment.

To achieve this, they devised a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) that applies frequency-selective positive and negative capacitive feedback. By incorporating a feedback structure that operates selectively depending on frequency into the amplifier that converts current signals into voltage signals, they secured tolerance to strong interfering signals known as "blockers" while receiving signals across a wide bandwidth.

This research is expected to be used to improve the performance of receivers for drone detection in environments where various wireless signals coexist.

The research was conducted with support from the Research Cluster Project (2026-ANCHOR-13-JBU) organized by the Jeonbuk Anchor Center and the JBNU RISE Project Group, and from the Ministry of Education's 4th-phase BK21 project.