Dr. GAO Yuan received the B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2009 and 2012, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 2017. From 2017 to 2019, he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow with HKUST. Since November 2019, he serves as an Assistant Professor at School of Microelectronics, Southern University of Science and Technology. His research interests include analog and power integrated circuits design, especially for various high-voltage applications. Dr. Gao has published more than 30 papers in top journals and conferences in the field of IC design, including IEEE JSSC, ISSCC, VLSI Symp., CICC, and SSCL. Additionally, he has received the Best Paper Award at IEEE ISCAS 2023 and a Best Paper Nomination at IEEE CICC 2023. He also serves in the review boards of multiple international journals and conferences.

Education

2012–2017, Ph.D. in Electronic and Computer Engineering, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

2009–2012, M.Eng. in Electronic Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University
2005–2009, B.Eng. in Microelectronics, Xi’an Jiaotong University

Working Experience

2019.11–Present, Assistant Professor, Southern University of Science and Technology

2017.9–2019.10, Post-Doctoral Fellow, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Research Interests

Analog and Power IC Design

Driver & Controller IC for GaN power device

Efficient & Smart LED / LD driver IC

High-performance DC-DC / AC-DC power IC

Selected Awards

2023，IEEE ISCAS，Best Paper Award，3rd place

2023，IEEE CICC, Best Student Paper Finalist

2020, Shenzhen Overseas High-Caliber Personnel C

2017, IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Student Travel Grant Award (STGA), ISSCC
2014, 1st Place Winner, the 9th Synopsys International Microelectronics Olympiad Contest, Hong Kong

Selected Papers 

1. X. Li and Y. Gao, "A Fully-Integrated Half-Bridge GaN Driver for Bidirectional Power Transfer," 2023 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Monterey, CA, USA, 2023, pp. 1-4. (Best Paper Award, 3 out of 1400 submitted papers)

2. C. Tong, Z. Fan and Y. Gao, “A Li-ion Battery Input 96.8% Peak Efficiency Single-Inductor Off-Chip-Capacitor-Free 2-Switch LED Driver with Two-Color Mixing Capability,”IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC), 2023. (Best Student Paper Finalist) 

3. X. Han, W. -H. Ki, L. Wu and Y. Gao, “Ultra-High PSR Output-Capacitor-Free Adaptively-Biased 2-Power-Transistor LDO with 200-mV Dropout,” IEEE Solid-State Circuits Letters (SSCL), 2022.

4. Y. Gao, L. Li, K. Chong, and P. K.T. Mok, “A Hybrid LED Driver With Improved Efficiency”, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), Vol. 55, No. 8, pp. 2129-2139, Aug. 2020.

5. Y. Gao, L. Li and P. K.T. Mok, “An Inductor-Less LED Driver for Efficient Lighting and Visible-Light- Communication”, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), 2018, Vol. 53, No. 8, pp. 2343-2355, Aug. 2018.

6. L. Li, Y. Gao, H. Jiang, P. K.T. Mok, and K. M. Lau, “An Auto-Zero-Voltage-Switching Quasi-Resonant LED Driver with GaN FETs and Fully Integrated LED Shunt Protectors”, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 913–923, March 2018.

7. Y. Gao, L. Li and P. K.T. Mok, “An AC Input Switching-Converter-Free LED Driver with Low-Frequency- Flicker Reduction”, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), 2017, Vol. 52, No. 5, pp. 1424-1434, May 2017. 

8. Y. Gao, L. Li, P. K.T. Mok, “An AC-Input Inductor-less LED Driver for Visible-Light-Communication Applications with 8Mb/s Data Rate and 6.4% Low-Frequency Flicker”, IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), Feb. 2017, pp. 384-385.

9. Y. Gao, L. Li, P. K.T. Mok, “A 5.5 W AC Input Converter-Free LED Driver with 82% Low-Frequency-Flicker Reduction, 88.2% Efficiency and 0.92 Power Factor”, IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits, June 2015, pp. C286-C287.