Salvatore PENNISI

Full Professor of Electronics [ING-INF/01]

Salvatore Pennisi was born in Catania, Italy, in 1965. He received the laurea degree in Electronics Engineering in 1992, and in 1997 the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering, both from the University of Catania. In 1996 he joined the DIEES, now DIEEI, (Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica Elettronica e Informatica) at the University of Catania as a researcher. From 2002 to 2016 he has been an associate professor and since 2016 he is a full professor. Since 2016 he is also the President of the Master Degree Course in Electronics Engineering at the University of Catania. In 2017 he has been elected as National Coordinator of the Italian Society of Electronics (SIE) for the area Integrated Systems.
In 2017 Prof. Pennisi was elevated to the grade of Fellow IEEE “for contributions to multistage CMOS operational amplifiers”.
Since 2014 he is Review Editor of the Wiley International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications. From 2007 to 2009 he was Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS - PART II: EXPRESS BRIEFS. 
Since 2007 he is member of the Analog Signal Processing Technical Committee (IEEE Circuits and Systems Society).

Form 2014 to 2017 prof. Pennisi was member of the Technical Program Committee of the conference ESSCIRC, European Solid-State Circuits Conference (Track 8: Analog Circuits). Since 2017 he is member of the steering committee of the Conference on Ph.D. Research in Microelectronics and Electronics (PRIME). He has also been track chair and/or review committee member of several international conferences including ISCAS, ICECS, ECCTD, NEWCAS, ECCTD. In 2001 he was in the organization of the IEEE International On Line Testing Workshop, in 2018 of the conference ISICAS, International Symposium on Integrated Circuits and Systems, and he was the general chair of PRIME 2017.

Prof. Pennisi is engaged in scientific projects in collaboration with Academic and Industrial partners like research units of the Politecnico of Milan and Universities of L’Aquila, Naples and Rome “La Sapienza” as well as with research/design groups of STMicroelectronics, Catania site. Besides, he collaborates with researchers of the University of Sevilla, Huelva, and Public University of Navarra (Spain), of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), National Tsing Hua University and Nan University (Taiwan). H-index of Salvatore Pennisi is 32 in the Scopus database.  
He has been responsible for several research projects, among which: 
a) Those funded by STMicroelectronics and regarding the development of (1) Driver circuits for OLED (organic light emitting diodes) displays, (2) Driver circuits for LCD (liquid crystal displays) in LTPS (low temperature polysilicon) technology and (3) Integrated conversion circuits for photovoltaic generators.
b)"Policies and circuits for efficient energy extraction from PV cells" FP7- ENIAC-2009-1: Models, solutions, methods and tools for energy-aware design, ENIAC Joint undertaking, SP7 Design Methods and Tools.
c) "Tecnologie per l'Energia e l'Efficienza Energetica". (ENERGETIC) - 01/01/2012 (PON02_00355_3301233). Work Pakage Coordinator "Sistema ultra low power per applicazioni autonome indoor", for the design of a wireless sensor network node seld-powerd through PV cells and embedding sensors, antenna, microcontroller and power manager. 
d) “Analysis and Design of high-gain class AB Operational Transconductance Amplifiers (OTA) with reduced current consumption”. Scientific responsible together with Prof. Ramón Gonzáles Carvajal, University of Seville, Spain, of the activity selected within the program: Integrated Actions Italy-Spain. 
e) Moreover, in 2003-2005, he has been involved in a National Research Program (PRIN), funded by Italian Ministry of Research, on "A new architecture for RF frequency synthesizer for GFSK/GMSK modulation" as the coordinator of the research group of Catania.
Prof. Pennisi acted also as a reviewer for the Italian Ministry of Research, (CIVR) the committee that rated the research activity of the Italian universities. Moreover, he regularly acts as a reviewer for the most important international journals in the field of circuits and systems and solid-state circuits. 
Salvatore Pennisi is also a music composer and a producer, and authored two CDs: Braintrain (Jazzy Record, 2012) and Jexx Machina (CD Bab,y 2017). 

VIEW THE COURSES FROM THE A.Y. 2022/2023 TO THE PRESENT

Academic Year 2021/2022


Academic Year 2020/2021


Academic Year 2019/2020


Academic Year 2018/2019


Academic Year 2017/2018


Academic Year 2016/2017


Academic Year 2015/2016

The research interests of Prof. Pennisi include circuit theory and CMOS analog & mixed/signal design, initially, with emphasis on current-mode (CM) techniques. In this field he developed various innovative CM building blocks and unconventional CM amplifier architectures, by defining analytical models and design methodologies validated through experimental implementations. Another research topic concerned the design of (voltage) operational amplifiers: transconductance operational amplifiers, OTAs, transimpedance amplifiers, TIAs, and current feedback amplifiers, CFOAs. In this field, particular emphasis was devoted to the definition of optimized frequency compensation techniques especially for multistage OTAs (three- and four-gain stage amplifiers, by using nested-, reversed nested-, hybrid nested-Miller and single-capacitance approaches ). Another important research topic was towards the simplified, design-oriented analysis of harmonic distortion in the frequency domain in analog circuits, with special attention to feedback circuits, amplifiers and oscillators. Low-voltage and ultra-low voltage analog building blocks was another research theme that led to the design of several sub-1V analog blocks exploiting sub-threshold, body driven and body biasing techniques both with conventional and nanometer CMOS technologies. Other research areas were related to the design of sensor interface circuits, A/D and D/A converters, drivers for Liquid Crystal Displays.
The above research activity is testified by the publication of more than 90 contributions in international journals (more than 50 of which are IEEE Transactions) and more than 130 proceedings in referred international conferences. Besides, prof. Pennisi wrote the books CMOS Current Amplifiers (1999), Feedback Amplifiers: Theory and Design (2002) both edited by Kluwer Academic Publishers, and Liquid Crystal Display Drivers - Techniques and Circuits (Springer 2009), and he has been a contributor of the Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. According to the Scopus database, the H-index of Salvatore Pennisi at March 2018 is 26 (Scopus) and he received a total of 2.136 citations.