Payam Heydari

Picture of Payam Heydari
Chancellor's Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering
PH.D., University of Southern California
Phone: (949) 824-9324
Fax: (949) 824-3203
Email: payam@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
Engineering Hall 4432
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Terahertz/millimeter-wave/radio-frequency/analog integrated circuits design for emerging applications including brain-machine interface, sensing/imaging, and gigabit wireless communications
Academic Distinctions
Chancellor's Professor
Research Abstract
The Nanoscale Communication IC Labs carry out research on:

1. Silicon-based RF/millimeter-wave/terahertz integrated circuits design for imaging, sensing, and wireless communications; and
2. CMOS ultra-low power integrated circuits for brain-machine interface (BMI) systems

The NCIC lab is equipped with state-of-the-art measurement instruments including high frequency vector network analyzer, spectrum analyzer, sampling and real-time oscilloscopes, broadband analog signal source and probe station, as well as leading IC design software. The acquisition of the facility was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation under contract: CRI-0551735. The NCIC lab is actively involved in publishing research papers in leading IC design conferences and journals. The research in the NCIC lab has resulted in several U.S. patents.
Available Technologies
Awards and Honors
1. Fellow of National Academy of Inventors, 2022
2. IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S) Distinguished Educator Award, 2023; for “outstanding achievements as an educator, mentor, and role model of microwave engineers and engineering students.”
3. Chancellor’s Professor, University of California, Irvine, 2021 – present
This title was bestowed upon “scholars who have demonstrated unusual academic merit and whose continued promise for scholarly achievement makes them of exceptional value to the university.
4. IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference Best Invited Paper Award, 2021
for the single-authored paper “Transceivers for 6G Wireless Communications: Challenges and Design Solutions”
5. IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Innovative Education Award, 2021
Faculty Innovation Fellow, University of California, Irvine (UCI) Beall Applied Innovation, 2020 – 2021
6. IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S)
7. IEEE Fellow for contributions to silicon-based millimeter-wave integrated circuits and systems
8. School of Engineering Mid-Career Award of Excellence in Research, 2017
9. Distinguished Engineering Educator Award, Orange County Engineering Council, 2014
10. IEEE Distinguished Lecturer, Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS)
11. Outstanding Innovator, Office of Technology Alliance, UC-Irvine, 2011
12. Faculty of the Year Award, UC-Irvine’s Engineering Student Council, 2010
13. School of Engineering Best Faculty Research Award, 2009
14. First Place Winner of Business Plan Competition, Paul Merage School of Business at UC-Irvine, 2009
15. Best Concept Paper Award, Paul Merage School of Business at UC-Irvine, 2009
16. Low-Power Design Contest Award, IEEE Int’l Symposium on Low-Power Electronics and Design, 2008 [with Ph.D. students Fred Tzeng and Amin Jahanian].
17. IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) Guillemin-Cauer Award, 2007
for the journal paper “Model-Order Reduction Using Variational Balanced Truncation with Spectral Shaping,”IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems – I, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 879-891, April 2006
18. National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, 2005
19. IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) Darlington Award, 2005
for the single-authored journal paper “Analysis of the PLL Jitter Due to Power/Ground and Substrate Noise,” IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems – I, vol. 51, no. 12, pp. 2404-2416, Dec. 2004
20. Teaching Excellence Award, The Henry Samueli School of Engineering, 2005
21. IEEE Faculty Advisor, IEEE Chapter of Orange County, 2004
Technical Excellence Award, Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage, 2001
22. Best Paper Award, IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), 2000
Short Biography
Payam Heydari received his B.S. and M.S. degrees (Honors) in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 1992 and 1995, respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Southern California in 2001. He is currently the University Chancellor’s Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine.

During the summer of 1997, he was with Nokia Bell-labs where he worked on noise analysis in high-speed CMOS integrated circuits. He worked at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center on gradient-based optimization and sensitivity analysis of custom analog/RF ICs during the summer of 1998. His research covers the design of terahertz/millimeter-wave/radio-frequency and analog integrated circuits. He is the (co)-author of two books, three book chapters, and more than 175 journal and conference papers. He has given Keynote Speech to IEEE GlobalSIP 2013 Symposium on Millimeter Wave Imaging and Communications, served as Invited Distinguished Speaker to the 2014 IEEE Midwest Symp. on Circuits and Systems, and gave a Tutorial at the 2017 International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). He has served as Distinguished Lecturer of both the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) (2014-2016) and the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) (2019-2022).

Dr. Heydari is a fellow of National Academy of Inventors and a fellow of IEEE. He is the recipient of the 2023 IEEE Microwave Theory and Technology Society (MTT-S) Distinguished Educator Award, the 2021 IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Innovative Education Award, and Best Invited Paper Award at the 2021 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference. He was selected as the inaugural Faculty Innovation Fellow by the University of California, Irvine (UCI) Beall Applied Innovation. He was the recipient of the 2016-2017 UCI School of Engineering Mid-Career Excellence in Research, the 2014 Distinguished Engineering Educator Award from Orange County Engineering Council, the 2009 Business Plan Competition First Place Prize Award and Best Concept Paper Award both from Paul Merage School of Business at UC-Irvine, the 2010 Faculty of the Year Award from UC-Irvine’s Engineering Student Council (ECS), the 2009 School of Engineering Fariborz Maseeh Best Faculty Research Award, the 2007 IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Guillemin-Cauer Award, the 2005 IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Darlington Award, the 2005 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, the 2005 Henry Samueli School of Engineering Teaching Excellence Award, the Best Paper Award at the 2000 IEEE Int’l Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), and the 2001 Technical Excellence Award from the Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage (APSIH). He was recognized as the 2004 Outstanding Faculty in the EECS Department of the University of California, Irvine. His research on novel low-power multi-purpose multi-antenna RF front-ends received the Low-Power Design Contest Award at the 2008 IEEE Int’l Symposium on Low-Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED). The Office of Technology Alliances at UCI has named Dr. Heydari one of 10 Outstanding Innovators at the university.

Dr. Heydari is an Associate Editor of IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), IEEE Open Journal of Solid-State Circuits Society (OJ-SSCS), and IEEE Solid-State Circuits Letters (SSC-L). He is a member Technical Program Committee of IEEE European Solid-State Circuits Conference (ESSCIRC), and the 2021 International Microwave Symposium (IMS 2021). Dr. Heydari is currently a member of AdCom for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society. Formerly, Dr. Heydari was a member of International Technical Program Committee of the ISSCC (2014-2019). He was the Guest Editor of IEEE JSSC, and Associate Editor of IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems – I, and served on the Technical Program Committees of Compound Semiconductor IC Symposium (CSICS), Int’l Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED), IEEE Design and Test in Europe (DATE) and Int’l Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD). He is the director of the Nanoscale Communication IC (NCIC) Labs.
Professional Societies
IEEE, National Academies
Research Centers
Nanoscale Communication Integrated Circuits Labs
Last updated
05/12/2023