Chao Lu's headshot

Chao Lu

Associate Professor
chaolu@siu.edu
618-453-7028
Engineering E-223
Biomedical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering

Office Hours: MWF: 9:00  - 11:00 am

In August 2015, Dr. Lu joined Electrical and Computer Engineering at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC) as a tenure-track assistant professor. Since July 2020, Dr. Lu is an associate professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC).

Research Interests

  • HEVC/H.265 real-time video encoding algorithms and VLSI hardware architecture
  • Deep neural network algorithms and VLSI hardware architecture for:
    • Smart building systems
    • Self-driving applications
    • Pattern recognition
    • Video and image processing applications

Open Positions

I have opening positions in my VLSI system research lab for PhD students on exciting projects with funding support. Please contact me with your complete resume if you are interested in working together with me.​

OSHA Safety Training Materials

Teaching

  • ECE 327 Digital Circuit Design with HDL
  • ECE 410/510 Hardware Design and Architecture for AI
  • ECE 423/513 Digital VLSI Design
  • ECE 426/516 Implementation of VLSI Systems with HDL
  • ECE 515 Three Dimensional Integration Systems

Education

  • Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN Ph.D. Electrical and Comp. Engineering 

Research Interest

  • HEVC/H.265 real-time video encoding algorithms
  • VLSI hardware architecture

Awards and Honors

  • 2025 SIU System Collaborative Award

Professional Service

  • Technical Program Committee of ACM International Symposium on Low-Power Electronics and Design (2015), IEEE/ACM Great Lake Symposium on VLSI (2011-2014)
  • Editorial Board Member of International Journal of Electronics and Communications, Elsevier, 2012-Present

Journal Referee

  • IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC)
  • IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems
  • IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I (TCAS-I)
  • IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II (TCAS-II)

Working Experience

  • 07/20-present Associate Professor, School of Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering
  • 08/15-07/20 Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • 09/14-08/15 3D IC Chip Designer, Tezzaron Semiconductor, IL, 60563
  • 01/13-09/14 R&D Circuit Design Engineer, Arctic Sand Technologies, Cambridge, MA

Technical Expertise

  • Research and develop cutting-edge IC technology/circuit/platform.
  • Architect, design and verify circuits from schematic through layout.
  • Assist in develop and implement test circuit and test plan.
  • Prototype chip testing to validate analog circuit and system performance.

Recent Publications:

  1. C. Lu, C.Y. Tsui, W.H. Ki, “Vibration Energy Scavenging System with Maximum Power Tracking for Micro Power Applications,“ IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems, vol. 19, issue 11, pp. 2109-2119, Nov. 2011
  2. C. Lu, V. Raghunathan, K. Roy, “Efficient Design of Micro-Scale Energy Harvesting Systems,” vol.1, issue 3, pp. 254-266, 2011.
  3. C. Ho, C. Lu, K. Roy, “An Enhanced Voltage Programming Pixel Circuit for Compensating Brightness Variation in AMOLED Displays,” IEEE Journal of Display Technology, vol. PP, issue 99, 2014.
  4. S. Mungan, C. Lu, C. Ho, K. Roy, “Effects of Deposition Process on Poly-Si Micro-scale Energy Scavenging Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 1650-1657, April, 2016.
  5. C. Ho, D. Tsai, C. Lu, S. Kim, S. Mungan, Y. Zhang, J. He, "Device Process and Circuit Application Interaction for Harsh Electronics: Radiation-Hardening Hf-In-Zn-O Thin Film Transistors as an Example", IEEE Electron Device Letters, vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 1039-1042, August, 2017.
  6. Y. Zhang, C. Lu, "A Highly-Parallel Hardware Architecture of Table-based CABAC Bit Rate Estimator in HEVC Intra Encoder", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, vol. 25, no.9, pp. 1544 - 1558, 2019.
  7. Z. Zhang, Y. Wu, C. Lu, S. Ahmed, "Electron mobility in β-Ga2O3: an ensemble Monte Carlo study", Applied Physics A,  124: 637, 2018.
  8. Y. Zhang, C. Lu, "Efficient Algorithm Adaptations and Fully-Parallel Hardware Architecture for HEVC Intra Encoder", IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology,  vol. 29, no. 11, pp. 3415-3429, 2019.
  9. Y. Zhang, C. Lu, "High-performance algorithm adaptations and hardware architecture for HEVC intra encoders," IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, vol. 29, no. 7, pp. 2138-2145, 2019. 
  10. Avdan, G., Lu, C., Onal, S. (2024). IMU-Trans: Imputing missing motion capture data with unsupervised transformers. Neural Computing and Applications, 1-19, 2025. 2023.