MERL - Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories

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Rui Ma

Rui Ma
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  • Biography

    Prior to joining MERL in 2012, Rui was a Senior Power Amplifier Research Engineer at Nokia Siemens Networks. His research interests include RF Power Device Modeling, Power Amplifier / Radio Front-End Architectures, non-linear microwave circuit design, and high frequency measurement techniques. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, and Associate Editor of IEEE Journal of Electromagnetics, RF and Microwaves in Medicine and Biology.

  • Recent News & Events

    •  NEWS   Mitsubishi Electric Corporation and MERL Press Release Describes New 5G GaN Power Amplifier Technology
      Date: July 14, 2020
      Where: Tokyo, Japan
      MERL Contact: Rui Ma
      Research Areas: Communications, Electronic and Photonic Devices
      Brief
      • Mitsubishi Electric Corporation announced today its developement of a new technology to realize a gallium nitride (GaN) power amplifier module for 5G base-stations that offers a combination of compact (6mm by 10mm) footprint and high power-efficiency, the latter exceeding an unprecedented rating of 43%.

        MERL and Mitsubishi Electric researchers collaborated to develop high density mounting technology and matching circuit that uses a minimum number of chip components to achieve efficient, wide-band power amplification in the 3.4-3.8GHz bands used for 5G communication.

        Please see the link below for the full Mitsubishi Electric press release text. Technical details of the new module will be presented at the IEEE International Microwave Symposium this coming August.
    •  
    •  TALK   GCN-RL Circuit Designer: Transferable Transistor Sizing with Graph Neural Networks and Reinforcement Learning
      Date & Time: Tuesday, July 14, 2020; 11:00 AM
      Speaker: Hanrui Wang, MIT
      MERL Host: Rui Ma
      Research Areas: Electronic and Photonic Devices, Machine Learning
      Brief
      • Automatic transistor sizing is a challenging problem in circuit design due to the large design space, complex performance trade-offs, and fast technological advancements. Although there has been plenty of work on transistor sizing targeting on one circuit, limited research has been done on transferring the knowledge from one circuit to another to reduce the re-design overhead. In this work, we present GCN-RL Circuit Designer, leveraging reinforcement learning (RL) to transfer the knowledge between different technology nodes and topologies. Moreover, inspired by the simple fact that circuit is a graph, we learn on the circuit topology representation with graph convolutional neural networks (GCN). The GCN-RL agent extracts features of the topology graph whose vertices are transistors, edges are wires. Our learning-based optimization consistently achieves the highest Figures of Merit (FoM) on four different circuits compared with conventional black-box optimization methods (Bayesian Optimization, Evolutionary Algorithms), random search, and human expert designs. Experiments on transfer learning between five technology nodes and two circuit topologies demonstrate that RL with transfer learning can achieve much higher FoMs than methods without knowledge transfer. Our transferable optimization method makes transistor sizing and design porting more effective and efficient. The work is accepted to DAC 2020.
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  • Awards

    •  AWARD   Former Intern Receives IBM Scientific Award Honorable Mention
      Date: January 16, 2019
      Awarded to: Daniel Dinis
      MERL Contact: Rui Ma
      Research Areas: Communications, Signal Processing
      Brief
      • Former MERL intern Daniel Dinis from University of Aveiro (UA), Portugal has received the 2018 IBM Scientific Award with Honorable Mention referring to the contributions on "Real-time Tunable Delta-sigma modulators for All-Digital RF Transmitters" in his Ph.D. study.

        The award-winning work includes research conducted under the supervision of Arnaldo Oliveira and José Neto Vieira, professors from the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DETI) of the UA, as well as contributions made during Daniel's 7 month internship in 2017 at MERL.

        The ceremony for the presentation of the 28th IBM Scientific Prize took on January 16th, at the Noble Hall of the Superior Technical Institute. It was chaired by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, President of the Portuguese Republic.
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  • Internships with Rui

    • MD1370: Machine Learning based DPD for Power Amplifier

      MERL is looking for a talented intern to work on the next generation Digital-predistortion algorithms for power amplifier linearization such as 5G. The development of a DPD system involves aspects of signal processing and statistical algorithm design, RF components and instrumentation, digital hardware and software. It is therefore both a challenging and intellectually rewarding experience. This will involve MATLAB coding, interfacing to test equipment such as power sources, signal generators and analyzers and construction and calibration of RF component assemblies. The ideal candidate should have knowledge and experience in adaptive signal processing, machine learning, and radio communication. Good practical laboratory skills are needed. RF semiconductor devices and circuit knowledge is a plus. Duration is 3 to 6 months.

    • MD1441: Advanced Phased Array Transceiver

      MERL is looking for a highly motivated, and qualified individual to join our internship program of advanced phased array research. The ideal candidate should be a senior Ph.D. student with rich experience in beam forming technologies. Knowledge of wireless communication, transceiver architecture, and digital signal processing, FPGA and/or Matlab programming skills are required. RF circuits knowledge will be a plus. Duration is 3-6 months with a flexible start date.

    See All Internships at MERL

  • MERL Publications

    •  Sakata, S., Kato, K., Teranishi, E., Sugitani, T., Ma, R., Chuang, K., Wu, Y., Fukunaga, K., Komatsuszaki, Y., Kenichi, H., Yamanaka, K., Shinjo, S., "A Fully-Integrated GaN Doherty Power Amplifier Module with a Compact Frequency-Dependent Compensation Circuit for 5G massive MIMO Base Stations", IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS), June 2020.
      BibTeX TR2020-077 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Sakata2020jun,
      • author = {Sakata, Shuichi and Kato, Katsuya and Teranishi, Eri and Sugitani, Takumi and Ma, Rui and Chuang, Kevin and Wu, Yuchen and Fukunaga, Kei and Komatsuszaki, Yuji and Kenichi, Horiguchi and Yamanaka, Koji and Shinjo, Shintaro},
      • title = {A Fully-Integrated GaN Doherty Power Amplifier Module with a Compact Frequency-Dependent Compensation Circuit for 5G massive MIMO Base Stations},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS)},
      • year = 2020,
      • month = jun,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2020-077}
      • }
    •  Komatsuszaki, Y., Ma, R., Sakata, S., Nakatani, K., Shinjo, S., "A Dual-Mode Bias Circuit Enabled GaN Doherty Amplifier Operating in 0.85-2.05GHz and 2.4-4.2GHz", IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS), June 2020.
      BibTeX TR2020-080 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Komatsuszaki2020jun,
      • author = {Komatsuszaki, Yuji and Ma, Rui and Sakata, Shuichi and Nakatani, Keigo and Shinjo, Shintaro},
      • title = {A Dual-Mode Bias Circuit Enabled GaN Doherty Amplifier Operating in 0.85-2.05GHz and 2.4-4.2GHz},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS)},
      • year = 2020,
      • month = jun,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2020-080}
      • }
    •  Sravan Kumar, P., Ma, R., "Design Considerations and FPGA Implementation of a Wideband All-Digital Transmit Beamformer with 50% Fractional Bandwidth", IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS), June 2020.
      BibTeX TR2020-078 PDF
      • @inproceedings{SravanKumar2020jun,
      • author = {Sravan Kumar, Pulipati and Ma, Rui},
      • title = {Design Considerations and FPGA Implementation of a Wideband All-Digital Transmit Beamformer with 50% Fractional Bandwidth},
      • booktitle = {IEEE International Microwave Symposium (IMS)},
      • year = 2020,
      • month = jun,
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2020-078}
      • }
    •  Tanovic, O., Ma, R., Orlik, P.V., Megretski, A., "Optimal Power Encoding of OFDM Signals in All-Digital Transmitters", IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), DOI: 10.1109/GLOBECOM38437.2019.9014289, December 2019, pp. 1-6.
      BibTeX TR2019-137 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Tanovic2019dec,
      • author = {Tanovic, Omer and Ma, Rui and Orlik, Philip V. and Megretski, Aleksandre},
      • title = {Optimal Power Encoding of OFDM Signals in All-Digital Transmitters},
      • booktitle = {IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM)},
      • year = 2019,
      • pages = {1--6},
      • month = dec,
      • publisher = {IEEE},
      • doi = {10.1109/GLOBECOM38437.2019.9014289},
      • issn = {2576-6813},
      • isbn = {978-1-7281-0962-6},
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2019-137}
      • }
    •  Wang, P., Koike-Akino, T., Bose, A., Ma, R., Orlik, P.V., Tsujita, W., Sadamoto, K., Tsutada, H., Soltanalian, M., "Learning-Based Shadow Mitigation for Terahertz Multi-Layer Imaging", International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz), DOI: 10.1109/IRMMW-THz.2019.8874429, September 2019.
      BibTeX TR2019-090 PDF
      • @inproceedings{Wang2019sep,
      • author = {Wang, Pu and Koike-Akino, Toshiaki and Bose, Arindam and Ma, Rui and Orlik, Philip V. and Tsujita, Wataru and Sadamoto, Kota and Tsutada, Hiroyuki and Soltanalian, Mojtaba},
      • title = {Learning-Based Shadow Mitigation for Terahertz Multi-Layer Imaging},
      • booktitle = {International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves (IRMMW-THz)},
      • year = 2019,
      • month = sep,
      • doi = {10.1109/IRMMW-THz.2019.8874429},
      • issn = {2162-2035},
      • isbn = {978-1-5386-8285-2},
      • url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2019-090}
      • }
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  • MERL Issued Patents

    • Title: "Mixed-mode Millimeter-wave Transmitter"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Da Cos, Daniel Antonio; Nagai, Yukimasa
      Patent No.: 10,560,126
      Issue Date: Feb 11, 2020
    • Title: "System and Method for Generating High Speed Digitized-RF Signals"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Da Cos, Daniel Antonio; Nagai, Yukimasa
      Patent No.: 10,523,478
      Issue Date: Dec 31, 2019
    • Title: "High Speed Digital Bit Generator for Optical Frontal Interface"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Da Cos, Daniel Antonio; Nagai, Yukimasa
      Patent No.: 10,516,420
      Issue Date: Dec 24, 2019
    • Title: "Power Amplifier System and Learning-based Autotuning Method Thereof"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Benosman, Mouhacine; Manjunatha, Koushik; Niu, Sufeng; Da Cos, Daniel Antonio
      Patent No.: 10,454,427
      Issue Date: Oct 22, 2019
    • Title: "Digital Beamforming Transmitter Array System with Hardware Sharing and Reduction"
      Inventors: Wang, Bingnan; Peng, Zhengyu; Kim, Kyeong-Jin; Wang, Pu; Ma, Rui; Teo, Koon Hoo
      Patent No.: 10,270,510
      Issue Date: Apr 23, 2019
    • Title: "Multi-band radio frequency transmitter"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Da Cos, Daniel Antonio; Teo, Koon Hoo; Orlik, Philip V.
      Patent No.: 10,187,232
      Issue Date: Jan 22, 2019
    • Title: "Noise Mitigating Quantizer for Reducing Nonlinear Distortion in Digital Signal Transmission"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Tanovic, Omer
      Patent No.: 10,177,776
      Issue Date: Jan 8, 2019
    • Title: "Methods and System of a Digital Transmitter with Reduced Quantization Noise"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Da Cos, Daniel Antonio
      Patent No.: 10,128,875
      Issue Date: Nov 13, 2018
    • Title: "Inter-Band CA Digital Transmitter with Multi-Stage Out-of-Band Noise Canceller"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Chung, SungWon; Teo, Koon Hoo
      Patent No.: 9,985,667
      Issue Date: May 29, 2018
    • Title: "Impedance Flattening Network for High Efficiency Wideband Doherty Power Amplifier"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Ali, Sheikh Nijam; Teo, Koon Hoo
      Patent No.: 9,948,246
      Issue Date: Apr 17, 2018
    • Title: "Wideband Self-Envelope Tracking RF Power Amplifier"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Teo, Koon Hoo; Chung, SungWon
      Patent No.: 9,780,730
      Issue Date: Oct 3, 2017
    • Title: "System and Method for Linearizing Power Amplifiers"
      Inventors: Koike-Akino, Toshiaki; Zhu, Qiuyao; Ma, Rui; Teo, Koon Hoo
      Patent No.: 9,749,163
      Issue Date: Aug 29, 2017
    • Title: "Method to Generate Multilevel Inverter Modulation Control Signals"
      Inventors: Duan, Chunjie; Teo, Koon Hoo; Ma, Rui
      Patent No.: 9,559,610
      Issue Date: Jan 31, 2017
    • Title: "Three-Way Sequential Power Amplifier System for Wideband RF Signal"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Shao, Jin; Teo, Koon Hoo
      Patent No.: 9,503,028
      Issue Date: Nov 22, 2016
    • Title: "System and Method for Generating Multi-Band Signal"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Chung, SungWon; Teo, Koon Hoo
      Patent No.: 9,294,079
      Issue Date: Mar 22, 2016
    • Title: "System and Method for Linearizing Power Amplifiers"
      Inventors: Koike-Akino, Toshiaki; Zhu, Qiuyao; Ma, Rui; Teo, Koon Hoo
      Patent No.: 9,270,504
      Issue Date: Feb 23, 2016
    • Title: "Output Matching Network for Wideband Power Amplifier with Harmonic Suppression"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Chung, SungWon; Teo, Koon Hoo
      Patent No.: 9,231,550
      Issue Date: Jan 5, 2016
    • Title: "Digital Power Encoder for Direct Digital-RF Transmitter"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Zhu, Qiuyao; Teo, Koon Hoo; Duan, Chunjie
      Patent No.: 9,100,265
      Issue Date: Aug 4, 2015
    • Title: "System and Method for Linearizing Power Amplifiers"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Zhu, Qiuyao; Teo, Koon Hoo; Duan, Chunjie
      Patent No.: 9,054,940
      Issue Date: Jun 9, 2015
    • Title: "Reconfigurable Output Matching Network for Multiple Power Mode Power Amplifiers"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Goswami, Sushmit; Teo, Koon Hoo; Duan, Chunjie
      Patent No.: 8,963,644
      Issue Date: Feb 24, 2015
    • Title: "Digital Power Encoder for Direct Digital-RF Transmitter"
      Inventors: Ma, Rui; Zhu, Qiuyao; Teo, Koon Hoo; Duan, Chunjie
      Patent No.: 8,953,670
      Issue Date: Feb 10, 2015
    • Title: "High Electron Mobility Transistor with Multiple Channels"
      Inventors: Teo, Koon Hoo; Feng, Peijie; Ma, Rui
      Patent No.: 8,907,378
      Issue Date: Dec 9, 2014
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