ABSTRACT: The consumer smartphone market has been a critical driver for optical components for a large part of the past decade, and will continue to do so. Critically, there are several trends - sensing through the display, increasing demand for high-resolution time-of-flight depth, and health - that are driving even greater adoption of optical components moving forward. In this talk, we will look at these trends, and how next-generation optical technologies are developing to address these needs.

Bio: Samuel Sheng, Ph.D. is currently Director of Sensing Technologies at Google, and an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. A recognized expert in systems development and digital signal processing, Dr. Sheng has extensive experience in architecting and designing leading-edge CMOS ASICs for ultrasonic sensors, silicon tuners, DSL transceivers, and mobile/low-power applications.

Prior to Google, he was the co-founder and CTO of Sentons Inc., focusing on next-generation ultrasonics as a sensor medium for touch- and force-sensing applications. Sentons' technology has been found in numerous flagship smartphones, using its unique ultrasound sensing capabilities to enhance usability and user experience. He was also co-founder and CTO at Telegent Systems, which was acquired by Spreadtrum Communications in 2011. Telegent Systems was a fabless semiconductor company focused on mobile television receiver products, and the fastest semiconductor startup to achieve $200M annual revenue in history. Dr. Sheng has also served as Distinguished Engineer at LSI Corporation and at Datapath Systems, Inc.

Dr. Sheng has authored numerous papers and publications on various topics such as low-power CMOS RF wireless systems and low-power CMOS digital design and has been awarded over fifty patents. He holds a BA degree in applied mathematics and BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

NOTE: This is the last seminar of the winter quarter