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I am Chithra, a post-doctoral researcher under Dr. Saurabh Saxena. My research interest include design of low-power, compact clocking solutions to mixed-signal ICs, time-to-digital converters (TDCs), digital-to-time converters (DTCs), delay-locked loops (DLLs) and phase-locked loops(PLLs). I am currently designing a TDC for quantum key distribution (QKD) system. Prior to this, I completed my Ph.D. under the guidance of Prof. Nagendra Krishnapura. During my Ph.D., we designed and tested a compact, low power, 18-channel TDC in 130nm CMOS process for the iron calorimeter detector in the India-based neutrino observatory (INO). We also proposed two techniques to suppress static phase offset in DLLs, a nonideality that affects the linearity of high-resolution single-shot TDCs.

Publications

Journals

  1. Chithra, A. Narayanan, R. S. A. Kumar and N. Krishnapura, “Auto-zeroing Static Phase Offset in DLLs using a Digitally Programmable Sensing Circuit,” in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, doi: 10.1109/TCSII.2021.3049134.
  2. Chithra and N. Krishnapura, “A flexible 18-channel multi-hit time-to-digital converter for trigger-based data acquisition systems,” in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers, vol. 67, no. 6, pp. 1892-1901, Jun. 2020, doi: 10.1109/TCSI.2020.2969977.
  3. Chithra, P. S and A. A. Prince, “RF MEMS-based biosensor for pathogenic bacteria detection,” BioNano Science, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 321-328, Sep. 2013, doi: 10.1007/s12668-013-0098-1.

Conferences

  1. Chithra, “A technique for measuring picosecond delays using phase modulation”, accepted for poster presentation in 2021 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS).
  2. Chithra and N. Krishnapura, “Static phase offset reduction technique for delay locked loops,” 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Sapporo, Japan, 2019, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/ISCAS.2019.8702613.
  3. Chithra and N. Krishnapura, “Modeling techniques for faster verification of a time-to-digital converter system-on-chip design,” 2019 IEEE Conference on Modeling of Systems Circuits and Devices (MOS-AK India), Hyderabad, India, 2019, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/MOS-AK.2019.8902447.

Patents

  1. N. Krishnapura, Chithra, A. Narayanan and R. S. A. Kumar, “Static phase offset reduction in DLLs using a digitally programmable sensing circuit,” India patent application #202041057083. (Patent pending).