Electronic Engineering graduates Tolga Dinç and Samet Zihir developed chips that will enable breakthroughs in 5G and more advanced wireless communication technologies.
Tolga Dinç and Samet Zihir developed circuits that achieve the highest performance in 5G and beyond with their functionalities and power properties.
The circuits developed by Tolga Dinç and Samet Zihir operate at 60GHz, which is predicted to be the operating frequency of the 5G mobile communication standard that will succeed the current 4G/LTE standard.
Breakthrough research in 5G technology
There are various research projects in similar frequencies and fields, and each group or institution announces the highest values they achieve. Samet Zihir designed the circuit with the most functionality/density and highest power in this field. The research revealed the extents of system size and complexity that may be designed with silicon technology.
Tolga Dinç designed the world's first transmitter that can receive and send data at the same frequency. Textbooks on wireless communication state that it is impossible to send and receive data on the same frequency at the same time. Although recent research implied that this may indeed be possible, it had proven impossible to design a chip capable of this even in the 3G/4G/LTE frequencies.
Columbia University PhD student Tolga Dinç and University of California-San Diego PhD student Samet Zihir carried out research during their undergraduate and graduate education within the Microelectronics Groupfounded by Professor Yaşar Gürbüz from Sabancı University.
Tolga Dinç (Sabancı University Electronic Engineering Undergraduate 2010 and Graduate 2012) and Samet Zihir (Sabancı Üniversitesi Electronic Engineering Undergraduate 2009 and Graduate 2011) spoke on the subject.
Young researchers Tolga Dinç and Samet Zihir explain:
Sabancı University Electronic Engineering graduate Tolga Dinç: “By 2020, the 5G technology will have increased the need for wireless technology capacity by one thousand fold."
Recent data suggests that, due to increasing use of multimedia applications on smartphones and tablets, wireless data traffic and the demand for capacity doubles every year. This means that from the launch of the 4G technology in 2010 to 5G technology in 2020, the demand for wireless technology capacity will increase by a factor of one thousand. The demand for faster access will not end in 2020; it will continue to multiply year after year. These are such great challenges for the telecommunication industry that they are called the “grand challenge” or the “1000 X challenge.” Since the currently deployed techniques are at the point of saturation, new and revolutionary methods must be developed in the wireless communication sector. We are working to develop unconventional techniques and systems that may help to resolve this grand challenge in wireless communication.
Sabancı University Electronic Engineering graduate Samet Zihir:"Our project will contribute to technologies that millions will be using on handheld devices and at home in three to four years."
Humankind's desire for faster communication never ends, and never will. The primary objective of our project is deployment in next-generation mobile phones and relay stations. We expect our project to contribute to technologies that millions will be using on handheld devices and at home in three to four years. We can also say that the techniques we develop while designing circuitry will benefit the defense and automotive industries.
We received great feedback after the awards. Many mobile operators contacted us for cooperation possibilities.
What did Tolga Dinç and Samet Zihir’s professors say about the achievements?
Sabancı University Faculty Member Professor Yaşar Gürbüz: “I congratulate Samet and Tolga for their outstanding achievements. I am confident that they will be even more successful in the future. Both students are characterized by being idealists who persevere in their ideals. When their right choices are factored in, such achievements are rarely by chance. Tolga and Samet are the most recent brilliant examples of the right work we have been doing in the Electronic Engineering and the Microelectronics field in particular, in terms of both education and research, since our establishment 16 years ago. I would like to thank Samet and Tolga as well as everyone else who played a part in this process, and their PhD advisors Prof. Rebeiz and Prof. Krishnaswamy."
Tolga Dinç’s advisor, Columbia University professor of Electrical Engineering Harish Krishnaswamy said that he was proud on behalf of his university with Tolga's achievement, and commended Sabancı University faculty for providing Tolga with the strong undergraduate and graduate education that laid the foundation of his current work.
Samet Zihir’s advisor, University of California-San Diego professor Gabriel M. Rebeiz said to Sabancı University President Nihat Berker that hearing about the achievements of Sabancı University worldwide was not surprising, as evidenced by the most recent prizes won by our graduates Tolga Dinç and Samet Zihir, who is currently his student, among hundreds of submissions in the field. Rebeiz said, "Sabancı University should be proud of their graduates, and I believe Professor Yaşar Gürbüz plays a large part in the success of these young scientists."