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Alfio Zanchi was born in Alzano Lombardo (Bergamo), Italy on June 2, 1971.
He is an Italian citizen.
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He earned his College Degree in Computer Science at the Technical School “I.T.I.S. P. Paleocapa” in Bergamo, Italy. In 1990 he was awarded the Student Grant “Martinelli” by this School's committee.
The final examination was given on July 4, 1990 with final mark 60/60.Then he worked towards the Laurea Degree in Electronics Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano.
The Degree was obtained on April 17, 1996 with final mark 100/100 cum laude.
Here are some selected courses attended: Analog circuit design, Digital circuit design, Microelectronics, Electronic devices, Microwaves, Signal theory, Numerical signal processing, Communications, Electronic instrumentation and measurements. In 1992 he received the Student prize “A. Tarsi” from the Department of Mathematics of the Politecnico di Milano. In 1995 he was awarded the University check (I.S.U.) for deserving students.
The Degree Thesis theme concerned the design of a digital integrated circuit : “Decimatore digitale a 200 MHz per A/D Sigma-Delta: dall’architettura al layout” ("A digital decimator at 200 MHz rate for A/D Sigma-Delta: from system architecture down to layout").Recently, he achieved the Ph.D. Degree in Electronic and Communications Engineering (November 1996 - October 1999) at the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, with a Thesis regarding aspects of analog design of integrated circuits : “On the development of fully-integrated LC-tuned oscillators for wireless applications”. The eventual Defense was successfully given on February 22, 2000.
During his PhD Course he was also involved in the study of Single-Photon Avalanche Diodes, in the Minor research theme "Misure di caratterizzazione su matrici di fotorivelatori a valanga" ("Measurements of characterization on avalanche photodetector arrays").
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His main research interest concern the circuit design, in the widest sense. The digital decimator designed during the Degree Thesis allowed him to gain experience on digital circuits topics. Starting from the system specs set by the requirements of an A/D conversion chain for video-frequency application, a suitable structure for the decimator stage of a 2-bit, 50-MHz clocked Sigma-Delta modulator was sought. The devised FIR filter was then implemented in a BiCMOS technology featuring 0.7 mm of channel length, with full-custom layout. All of the steps leading to the final silicon run are collected in the Degree Dissertation and Degree Slides (available in Italian language only).
Since the beginning of the Ph.D. Course, the focus of Alfio Zanchi's work moved towards the development of analog electronics for RF wireless front-end. The principal issue addressed concerned fully-integrated LC-tank VCOs, with an emphasis on phase noise reduction techniques. Some findings about the phase noise in embedded oscillators are explained in the Slides for ESSCIRC (European Solid-State CIRCuits conference). The main stream of activity consisted of the development and implementation of fully-integrated oscillators with a high-speed bipolar technology (fT = 20 GHz), and finally led to the realization of 6 test chips and 2 RF test boards.
This activity was supported by the RF Design Group of STMicroelectronics of Catania, Italy; 24 monthly reports document the results of the work. As the final part of the work was developed by the Politecnico di Milano with a grant of the Italian National Research Council, under the Project "MADESS II", two further in-progress Slide Reports were produced.
A succinct briefing of the activity done by Alfio Zanchi's RF Group as of 1998 was presented in a talk at the Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (U.S.A.). A comprehensive landscape of the theoretical, simulative, design and experimental activity performed is found in the PhD Dissertation and in the accompanying Defense Slides.A parallel activity of experimental characterization performed on photodetector arrays (Ph.D. Minor research theme) allowed to rate the optical crosstalk between near devices in the arrays of photodetectors, and suggested a way to exploit the counting of SPAD diodes, when operated in the dark, as a figure of merit for defectivity evaluation. This let us hypothesize of using the photodetectors as probes for manufacturing quality ranking and defectivity mapping. The documentation pertaining to this activity is gathered in an Internal Report of the Minor of the Politecnico di Milano (in Italian language only) and in the Slides for IRPS (International Reliability Physics Symposium).
See also Research
History
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Up to now, Alfio Zanchi had 8 papers published (in English) on IEE and IEEE journals and conferences, and 1 Internal report at the Politecnico. Further 4 scientific publications are under review at the moment.
The Full Listing of publications on Journals, Conferences and Reports is available on-line.that since the Copyright has been transferred to the IEEE or IEE, only a brief TOC is provided on-line here. You can access the official web site of the IEEE/IEE Electronic Library in order to get a complete copy of the papers (subscription is needed).
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All of these files are available in Acrobat 4.0 format.
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From June 1996 till May 1997 Alfio Zanchi was engaged in the military service with the Alpine specialized forces of the Italian Army, having joined the Tridentina Logistic Batallion in Elvas (BZ), Italy.My other personal interests are puzzle solving, cycling and mountain trekking.
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Dipartimento di Elettronica ed Informazione (c/o Dipartimento di Fisica)
Piazza L. Da Vinci, 32 I-20133 Milano (ITALY)
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E-mail : alfio.zanchi@ieee.org |
Office phone : +39-02-2399.6174
Lab phone : +39-02-2399.6146
Fax : +39-02-2367.604 |
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Last updated - 05/18/2000 |
