Microsystems Research Group (formerly Microelectronics System Design Group), School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Newcastle University

The Microsystems group is built on Newcastle’s traditional strengths in microelectronics design, with the aim of using their synergy to tackle the challenges of rapidly evolving pervasive applications, such as the internet of things, autonomous devices and bio-implantable microsystems.

Expertise in the group spans circuits, architectures, algorithms, and systems, as well as design automation tools, with particular emphasis on methodologies for designing systems with low to zero energy footprints, and converting energy to computation and communication with maximum energy utilisation in a wide band of operating conditions.

The group consists of seven academic staff and seven research associates, with nearly 30 PhD students, creating a critical mass to cover both fundamental and applied research in complex microsystems engineering.

The unique strengths of the group lie in system timing, robust synchronisers for complex systems on chip (SoCs) and networks on chip (NoCs), globally asynchronous and locally synchronous (GALS) systems, energy driven computing, power proportional computing, gracefully degrading systems and systems for survival, models for power-performance-reliability interplay and optimisation for many core embedded systems, on-chip power regulation and management, on-chip sensing and monitoring, self-timed and asynchronous systems, near-threshold circuit design, variation-tolerant circuit design, neuro-silicon interface and system design for optogenetic retinal prosthesis.

  • Ultra low power electronics
  • Energy harvesting and battery-less systems
  • Autonomous devices
  • Sensor networks
  • Biomedical implants
  • Asynchronous systems
  • Many-Core embedded systems
  • Concurrent systems and
  • Internet of things