Meet Keysight’s Modeling Software R&D Engineer: Q&A with Lina Cao

Meet Keysight’s Modeling Software R&D Engineer: Q&A with Lina Cao

Keysight PathWave ADS and GoldenGate are known for superior accuracy, performance, and integration among the electrical engineering community. We talked with Lina Cao, a senior software R&D engineer from Keysight EDA, to discover more about the value delivered to Keysight’s customers through modeling software development.

Q: What inspired you to take a technology career path?

Lina: I chose to work in technology because I enjoyed the challenge of finding creative solutions to complex problems. I’ve always enjoyed mathematics and physics. And besides, I love sci-fi movies! So that’s why I’m into technology.

I’m amazed at how technology can change people’s lives too. When I was young, about 10 years old, we only had wired phones which were very expensive to install in the home. But by the time I went to college, six to eight years later, we’d almost eliminated wired phones in favor of cell phones. It’s become much cheaper to own a cell phone and changed our way of communication.

Q: What’s your favorite sci-fi movie?

Lina: It’s from when I was little, I watched Contact, with Jodie Foster. In the movie her character is very smart, but life is unfortunate for her, losing her father when she was young. And then at the end of the movie, she saw her father in some mysterious way. She pursued her way even when nobody believed her, but she stuck to her journey. I was intrigued by the scene when she was alone, lying down on the big antenna in Puerto Rico (Arecibo Observatory).

Q: So when you went to college you became an electrical engineer. You then specialized in RF and microwave?

Lina: Yes, when I was in undergraduate study, we didn’t have a special focus. At my university, the course was a part of the electrical engineering department, but our school focused on communication technology, wireless technology, and communication theory.

Q: What did you do after undergraduate study?

Lina: I went to that university’s master's program, and focused on microwave engineering. And then I came to the United States for my PhD, with the focus on semiconductors.

Q: What were you researching for your PhD program? What problem were you solving?

Lina: When I was doing my PhD research, I chose to study gallium nitride (GaN) devices. Engineers use GaN devices in RF power electronics and high-speed switching. I was working on accurate device modeling, fabrication, and characterization for microwave and millimeter wave applications. It was a weird device called the IMPATT (IMPact ionization Avalanche Transit-Time) diode, for high power, high frequency signal generation. These were interesting because with GaN the breakdown voltage is really high, the current at breakdown is also high, so the power output is really, really high. You can use that to generate high power at a very high frequency. So that's the goal.

Q: How did you first become familiar with Keysight? When did you start using Keysight products?

Lina: I first used Keysight PathWave ADS and a Keysight VNA when I was a senior in my undergraduate years. At the end of my undergraduate year, we needed to design something to graduate. For that semester, we only needed to do that one thing, and I used ADS to design the receiver part of a transceiver. I used the VNA to test the low noise amplifier for my receiver.