Grainger College of Engineering, All Events

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Candidate Seminar

by Xibi Chen

PhD Candidate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical and Computer Science

Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 11:00 am-12:00 pm

B02 CSL Auditorium or Online via Zoom

Title: Integrated Electromagnetics: A New Dimension of Hardware Scaling

Abstract: As conventional semiconductor scaling approaches its physical and economic limits, future hardware design will no longer target on a single “best” chip, but on efficient multi-chip interconnects, where data communications become a main constraint, as already evident in large-scale data center with AI workloads. Alongside electrical copper and optical fiber links, electromagnetic (EM) field manipulation at mmWave and sub-THz frequencies offers a complementary dimension for data transport, which can potentially fill the remaining spatial and spectral gaps. Realizing this emerging paradigm requires advances in integrated mmWave/sub-THz transceivers and large-scale antenna arrays, enabling reconfigurable, scalable, and spatially distributed EM interconnects for the next-generation electronics. In this research seminar, I present my PhD works including design, prototyping, and experimental validation of: (i) a 140-GHz monostatic CMOS transceiver featuring a low-inherent-loss full-duplexer with adaptive self-interference cancellation; (ii) a 250-GHz CMOS transceiver tailored for cross-polarimetric sensing with antenna-in-package (AiP) integration; and (iii) a 250-GHz 6400-element aperiodic reflectarray consists of 25 organic packages and 400 CMOS chiplet integrations, achieving <1° beamwidth and 2D electrical beam steering. I will then articulate how these technologies may serve and benefit future high-speed wireless data fabrics.  

Xibi Chen is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA. He received his B.S. and M.S. degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2017 and 2020, respectively. From 2015 to 2017, he was a Research Assistant with the Microwave and Antenna Institute, Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University. He later became a Graduate Student Researcher in the same institute from 2017 to 2019. In 2020, he joined EECS, MIT as a Ph.D. student. His research background includes terahertz (THz) integrated circuits and systems, electromagnetics, advanced packaging technologies, large-scale phased arrays, radar sensing, and high-speed communications. He worked in Texas Instruments (Kilby Lab) and Intel Corporation as Summer Research Interns in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Xibi is the recipient of 2025-2026 IEEE SSCS Predoctoral Achievement Award, and 2024 IEEE MTT-S Tom Brazil Graduate Fellowship. He also received 2025 MIT EECS MathWorks Fellowship Award, ISSCC 2022 Student Travel Grant Award, and Analog Devices Outstanding Student Designer Award.