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Introduction

We are in an exciting era where technologies from science fiction movies, such as autonomous driving, work robots, and remote medical care, are rapidly becoming practical. At the Yoshioka Laboratory, we are conducting research on autonomous driving security and sensing, focusing on innovative edge computing circuit technology and LiDAR, which support these technologies from the ground up, and are conducting research that impacts the world.

Achievements

■LiDAR and Monitoring Systems
・Research Objective: To provide a tutorial and review of automotive direct time of flight (dToF) LiDAR systems, focusing on their evolution into next-generation LiDARs with improved cost and performance through system-on-chip integration.
- Title: A Tutorial and Review of Automobile Direct ToF LiDAR SoCs: Evolution of Next-Generation LiDARs, YOSHIOKA Kentaro （IEICE Transactions on Electronics） E105.C （ 10 ） 534-543 Oct. 2022
■Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC)
・Research Objective: The objective of the research is to develop a PVT-robust ring amplifier for a high-speed pipelined ADC that operates across a wide temperature range without gain calibration.
- Title: A 4.6–400 K Functional Ringamp-Based 250 MS/s 12 b Pipelined ADC With PVT-Robust Unity-Gain-Frequency-Aware Bias Calibration, Yamashita Kaoru, Hershberg Benjamin, Yoshioka Kentaro, Ishikuro Hiroki （IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits） 59 （ 3 ） 740-752 Mar. 2024
・Research Objective: Development of a VCO-based comparator that automatically adapts its noise performance for high-precision and low-power SAR ADCs.
- Title: VCO-Based Comparator: A Fully Adaptive Noise Scaling Comparator for High-Precision and Low-Power SAR ADCs, Yoshioka Kentaro （IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems） 29 （ 12 ） 2143-2152 Dec. 2021
・Research Objective: To introduce a digital amplifier technique for power-efficient and accurate amplification in scaled CMOS for switched capacitor circuits.
- Title: Digital Amplifier: A Power-Efficient and Process-Scaling Amplifier for Switched Capacitor Circuits, Yoshioka Kentaro, Itakura Tetsuro, Sugimoto Tomohiko, Waki Naoya, Kim Sinnyoung, Kurose Daisuke, Ishii Hirotomo, Furuta Masanori, Sai Akihide, Ishikuro Hiroki （IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems） 27 （ 11 ） 2575-2586 Nov. 2019
■Robotics and Vision Systems
・Research Objective: To propose a robot vision system with tilt-type mirror reflection sensing to diminish occlusions without the need for multiple sensors.
- Title: Through the Looking Glass: Diminishing Occlusions in Robot Vision Systems with Mirror Reflections, Yoshioka Kentaro, Okuni Hidenori, Ta Tuan Thanh, Sai Akihide （2021 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)） 1578-1584 Sep. 2021
■Current Source and Delay-Locked Loop
・Research Objective: To propose a Time-Based Current Source (TBCS) as a robust and process-scalable reference current source suitable for switched-capacitor circuits.
- Title: Time-Based Current Source: A Highly Digital Robust Current Generator for Switched Capacitor Circuits, YOSHIOKA Kentaro （IEICE Transactions on Electronics） E105.C （ 7 ） 324-333 Jul. 2022
■Neural Networks and Computing
・Research Objective: To develop an On-the-fly Saliency-Aware Hybrid CIM (OSA-HCIM) that dynamically configures computing precision based on input importance to enhance efficiency and performance in deep neural networks.
- Title: OSA-HCIM: On-The-Fly Saliency-Aware Hybrid SRAM CIM with Dynamic Precision Configuration, Chen Yung-Chin, Ando Shimpei, Fujiki Daichi, Takamaeda-Yamazaki Shinya, Yoshioka Kentaro （2024 29th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASP-DAC)） 539-544 Jan. 2024
・Research Objective: To develop a capacitor-reconfigured compute-in-memory macro that enables dual-mode operation for optimized acceleration of both CNNs and Transformers.
- Title: A 818–4094 TOPS/W Capacitor-Reconfigured Analog CIM for Unified Acceleration of CNNs and Transformers, Yoshioka Kentaro （IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits） 1-12

Areas of Research

・Information Security
・Robotics, Intelligent Machine Systems
・Electronic Devices, Electronic Equipment
・Electronic Devices, Electronic Equipment

Social Contributions

・Improves the quality of elderly care by providing a monitoring system that eliminates blind spots while protecting privacy, contributing to better caregiving in an aging society.
Video

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