Prof. Dr.-Ing. Yiannos Manoli

Yiannos Manoli was born in Famagusta, Cyprus, in 1954. As a Fulbright scholar, he received the B.A. degree (summa cum laude) in Physics and Mathematics from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1978 and the M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980. He obtained the Dr.-Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Gerhard Mercator Universität in Duisburg, Germany, in 1987.

From 1980 to 1984 he was a research assistant at the Universität of Dortmund, Germany, in the field of digital and analog MOS integrated circuit design with an emphasis on A/D and D/A converters. This was also the topic of his dissertation: "Components and Architectures for Fast High-Resolution A/D and D/A Converters".

In 1985 he joined the newly founded Fraunhofer Institute of Microelectronic Circuits and Systems in Duisburg where he established a design group for microsystem and microcontroller integrated circuits. His work there concentrated on mixed-signal CMOS circuits especially for monolithic integrated sensors such as surface micromachined pressure sensors, flow sensors, biosensors etc. Another highlight of his work was the design of application specific microcontrollers as well as novel architectures and development tools for such microcontrollers.

In 1996, he was appointed Chair of Microelectronics at the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Saarland in Saarbruecken, Germany. His research interests were focused on the design of low-voltage and low-power Delta Sigma converters and on VLSI embedded system design. As department head (1998-2000) he initiated a number of reforms that boosted the research activities and enhanced the teaching curriculum of the department.

In 2001, he joined the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) at the University of Freiburg, Germany where he established the Chair of Microelectronics. In memory of the founder of today's Trumpf Huettinger GmbH, his chair was endowed by the Fritz Huettinger Foundation and from 2010 until the retirement of Prof. Manoli it carried the name "Fritz Huettinger Chair of Microelectronics". This was the first time in the recent history of the University of Freiburg that a named professorship has been awarded.

His current research interests cover energy-harvesting electronics and sensor read-out circuits for the Internet-of-Things and automotive systems as well as analog-to-digital converters and neural probes for biomedical applications. He has made significant contributions to the design of ultra-low-voltage and ultra-low-power mixed-signal CMOS circuits with over 400 papers published in these areas.

In the years 2005-2022, he was co-director of the “Hahn-Schickard-Institut für Mikro- und Informationstechnik” in Villingen-Schwenningen and Freiburg, Germany. This non-profit, applied-research organization focuses on innovations in MEMS technologies and low-power sensor applications. The research activities concentrated on the field of inertial sensors and sensor fusion as well as on energy harvesting with an emphasis on motion and vibration energy transducers.

From 2008 until 2015 Professor Manoli served as Associate Dean and as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. He was instrumental in planning the new Department of Sustainable Systems Engineering - INATECH established in 2015.

In 2000 he had the opportunity to join a research project with the Sensor Division of Motorola for half a year in Phoenix, Arizona. In 2006, he spent his sabbatical semester with Intel in Santa Clara, California, working on the read-out electronics for a high-resolution accelerometer. A sabbatical leave at Columbia University in New York in 2017 has led to a creative and productive collaboration in the area of biomedical applications.

He was one of the first five Fellows nominated and selected for a residence at the Thomas Mann House in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, USA in 2018.

Yiannos Manoli received the best paper award of the "European Solid-State Circuits Conference" (ESCCIRC 1988) for the paper "A Self-Calibration Method for Fast High-Resolution A/D and D/A Converters". His group received awards for the following papers: "Novel Non-resonant Vibration Transducer for Energy Harvesting" at the Workshop on Micro and Nanotechnology for Energy Applications (PowerMEMS 2005), "Systematic Approach to the Synthesis of Continuous-Time Cascaded Sigma-Delta Modulators" at the IEEE International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS 2007), "A Unified Environment for Design Entry and 3D Animation of Analog Circuit Schematics" at the IEEE International Conference on Microelectronic Systems Education (MSE 2007), “A Self-Adaptive Switched-Capacitor Voltage Converter with Dynamic Input Load Control for Energy Harvesting” at the "European Solid-State Circuits Conference" (ESCCIRC 2009), and "Autonomous and Self-Starting Efficient Micro Energy Harvesting Interface with Adaptive MPPT, Buffer Monitoring, and Voltage Stabilization" at the "European Solid-State Circuits Conference" (ESSCIRC 2012).

The MSE-2007 award was granted for Spicy VOLTsim, a web-based application for the animation and visualization of analog circuits for which Yiannos Manoli also received the Media Prize of the University of Freiburg in 2005. Further developments of SpicyVOLTsim were supported with a "Fellowship for Innovations in University Teaching" of the Baden-Wuerttemberg Foundation in 2011. He was the first to receive the Best Teaching Award of the Faculty of Engineering when it was introduced in 2008. For his creative contributions to an interactive teaching of microelectronics, he also received the Excellence in Teaching Award of the University of Freiburg and the Teaching Award of the State of Baden-Württemberg, both in 2010.

Professor Manoli served as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE as well as guest editor of the “IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems” and the “IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits”. He is on the Senior Editorial Board of the “IEEE Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems” and on the Editorial Board of the “Journal of Low Power Electronics”. He has also served on the committees of a number of conferences such as the International Solid-State Circuits Conference ISSCC, the European Solid-State Circuits Conference (ESSCIRC) and the International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM). He was Program Chair (2001) and General Chair (2002) of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Design ICCD.

He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and a member of VDE, Phi Beta Kappa, and Mortar Board.

Yiannos Manoli is married to Astrid Strasburger-Manoli and has three children Martha, Katina and Manolis.