Cutting a path: CMOS-power-amp innovator Susanne Paul

摘要

Think you had a busy week? In March, Susanne Paul, winner of EDN's 2004 Innovator of the Year award, taped out the latest revision of a CMOS GSM/power-am-plifier chip she designed and two days later gave birth to a healthy daughter. The timing of the events was no surprise to Paul. In fact, she had planned the timeline months in advance and, luckily, her new daughter accommodated the plan. Friends and colleagues say that's typical of the Austin, TX, engineer, who manages a design group at mixed-signal-chip vendor Silicon Laboratories (www. silabs.com). "I'm an avid do-it-yourselfer," says Paul. "I'm the type of person that always needs to be doing something-accomplishing something." When she isn't busy at work or with her kids, she keeps occupied with home projects, such as carpentry, car repairs, and landscaping. "Susanne isn't one of those people who will drop off a car at a mechanic and say, 'fix it,'" says Alan Westwick, a co-worker at Silicon Labs. "She is very interested in understanding a problem, how it was caused, and how to prevent it from happening again. And she'll research the right way to fix a problem and fix it herself if she has the time." She was fixing a lawnmower engine when she came up with an unrelated idea of how to implement a power amplifier in CMOS fabric.