As the son of a chemical engineer, studying engineering was like continuing a legacy for me.

One of my fondest childhood memories was when my father, on children's day, took me to the
base of a newly discovered natural gas well he was working on. I could not forget how cool he
looked that day, working around with his safety helmet on and giving confident instructions to
his fellow colleagues. Hearing my father's life stories and seeing my father's work up close, I
started to dream- to follow in his footsteps and be an engineer.

From childhood, I could not stop thinking about two words- 'why' and 'how.' The speeding fan
amazed me, so did the crawling toy. Out of curiosity, I used to break apart my toy pieces and try
to figure out how a variety of tiny parts come together to bring these toys to life. I still remember
the euphoria I felt when, for the first time, I succeeded in lighting an LED using a battery. From
then on, the drive to understand the workings of my surrounding electrical accessories has set me
on the path of electrical engineering study.

Further, during my school years, I realized how much I loved to get into the flow of the
disciplines of science for hours. I could quickly catch on to those complex theorems, even
visualized intricate models in my imagination, and they all just made sense to me. All these
factors came together to make up my mind on why I should become an electrical and electronics
engineer. That's why, as the first stepping stone, despite obtaining a chance of getting into the
topmost medical college in the country, I opted to go for engineering admission at Bangladesh
University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), the country's pioneering engineering
university. Now, I am eager to take the next step in my academic career and deepen my
knowledge and research skills in this field.

I always wanted to be an engineer who is never hesitant about what he is doing in his work. And
to be so, I knew I had to learn a lot. Therefore, I always tried to put my academics above
everything else during my undergraduate studies. I actively participated in lecture discussions to
dig into course materials beyond prescribed curricula. While juggling hectic coursework of
different departmental and non-departmental subjects, the Microelectronics course during Level-
2 particularly drew my attention. After attending the Digital Electronics class during Level-3, I
made up my mind that I would take Electronics as my major. The elaborate complexity, from
simple Combinational and Sequential Logic Circuits to Finite State Machines, was nonetheless
intellectually engaging for me. The Digital Signal Processing course was another high point in
my undergraduate. I also had a good time in the Control Systems lab project, where our team
employed the Gaussian Mixture Model, a machine learning algorithm for speech recognition to
design a voice-controlled healthcare robot. However, the key turning point was the VLSI course
in Level-4. The topics of how, using CMOS technology, various logic circuits are implemented at
chip-level within timing and power constraints were quite exciting for me.

When I was in my second year of undergraduate, my father passed away from a brain stroke. My
father's sudden death shook me to my core. Our family started to go through some financial
hardship due to the sudden demise of its sole provider of the family. That evidently took a toll on
my academics during the first half of my undergraduate years. However, my father's wish to see
me shine in research areas in the future kept me going through those difficult times. By and by,
my academic grades improved. Finally, I graduated with one of the highest CGPAs in my class.

Besides my academics, I took part in many extra-curricular activities in and out of university. For
example, I, along with my team members, participated in quite a few robotic competitions,
notably International Robotic Competition (IRC) and International Autonomous Robotic
Competition (IARC). During that time, I learnt about microcontroller architecture in detail. I also
developed algorithms, i.e., line-following, maze-solving, etc., and designed PCB for our bots. I
derived immense pleasure and satisfaction from solving complex problems in projects that would
simulate real-life applications. Nevertheless, among our most noteworthy achievements was the
5th place award in the country round of IARC. Another one of my skills was in computer-
generated motion graphics. I worked part-time at Singularity Interactive Limited, where my team
was in charge of post-production of portfolio videos and TV commercials for corporate clients
like Unilever and Grameenphone. I loved to undertake challenging tasks and often went beyond
the usual requirements to ensure the standard of my tasks by putting in a lot of extra effort.
That’s why during my final undergraduate year, I, as a part of a three-member team, competed
and ranked First Runner-up in the Cadence Embedded-DSP Design Contest 2016, where we
proposed a sophisticated solution for the digital signal processing problem in Tensilica Xtensa
processor.

As part of my undergraduate thesis requirement, I undertook research on the numerical analysis

of the performance of Quantum photovoltaic cells under the supervision of Professor Md.
Kawsar Alam. Whenever I stumbled during my thesis, I remained optimistic and would try to
solve the issue by going through extensive research articles myself before getting help from
others. Furthermore, under the guidance of Professor A. B. M. Harun-Ur-Rashid, our team
developed a fast double-talk detection (DTD) algorithm based on signal envelopes to implement
acoustic echo cancellation in embedded systems. I was very ardent in staying up-to-date with the
latest scientific innovations and ongoing research in the global context. That's why we published
a paper at the 4th International Conference on Advances in Electrical Engineering (ICAEE)
based on the DTD project mentioned earlier.

Though I had gained a basic understanding during my undergraduate years, I wanted to explore
more into integrated circuits and VLSI. Hence, right after graduation, I joined Neural
Semiconductor Limited, a renowned semiconductor company in the country, as a Design
Engineer. There, I was given the responsibility of overseeing some parts of the ASIC design flow
using Cadence as the EDA tool. In the Analog-and-Mixed Signal team, we designed electronic
species in Verilog-A language using Incisive simulator. Later, while with the Physical Design
team, we designed, using Inovus simulator, the floorplan of blocks for minimized chip size and
optimized routing; then, the placement of standard cells for doing away with timing violations
and minimal power dissipation. Gaining this hands-on professional experience with Cadence
tools on RTL-to-GDS flow cemented my passion for integrated circuits and VLSI, and played a
role in deciding on which direction I should pursue my doctoral studies.
While working at Neural Semiconductor Limited, I read in-depth about high-performance
integrated circuits and systems and some of their emerging applications, like communication and
healthcare. I was amazed to see how far these minuscule modules can go in surpassing the limits
of our current electronics. At the same time, while I was pursuing my part-time MSc studies in
BUET, the contents of Biomedical Signal Processing course- how theoretical learnings from
Digital Signal Processing course can be implemented through CMOS technology in order to
improve the quality of living beings sparked my passion for this field. While I enjoyed studying
and working on these real-world issues, I found myself wanting to dive deeper into research and
tackle more complex problems. That's why I have decided to pursue a PhD in Electrical
Engineering. In my graduate studies, I want to focus on application specific high-performance
integrated circuits and VLSI.

For these reasons, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State
University is especially attractive to me. NC State University undoubtedly has one of the best IC
and system design programs outside of California. Especially, the Research Triangle Park is
known to be a hotbed for IC engineering. And above all, I am intrigued by the diverse and
interdisciplinary research projects being pursued by its faculty members, particularly in
electronic circuits and systems.

In particular, I found Professor Paul Franzon's work at Microelectronics Systems Laboratory

(MSL) largely inspiring since I believe our research interests closely align. His papers, 'Design
for 3D Stacked Circuits' and 'Multi-ANN embedded system based on a custom 3D-DRAM,'
especially intrigued me. Moreover, I thoroughly enjoyed his paper 'Design Obfuscation Through
3-D Split Fabrication with Smart Partitioning,' which describes a design and fabrication
experiment in order to investigate a methodology for assessing the security against reverse
engineering for ASICs fabricated in a split-manufacturing process based on 3-D integrated circuit
technologies.

My research interests in bio-focused ASICs also led me to follow Professor Alper Bozkurt's work
in the development of the next-generation bionic cyber-physical systems at iBionicS Lab. I
especially enjoyed his papers 'In Vitro Evaluation of an Injectable EEG/ECG Sensor for Wireless
Monitoring of Hibernation in Endangered Animal Species' and 'A 172 μW Compressively
Sampled Photoplethysmographic (PPG) Readout ASIC With Heart Rate Estimation Directly
from Compressively Sampled Data.' Moreover, Dr. Abraham Vázquez-Guardado's work in
cutting-edge bio-integrated opto-electronic implantable devices, especially his paper 'Remote
control of muscle driven miniature robots with battery-free wireless optoelectronics,' is quite
fascinating. Though not my primary research interest, Dr. Aydin Aysu’s research on hardware
security piqued my curiosity as well. It would, hence, be nothing short of a privilege to study at
the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in NC State University under the
guidance of its remarkable faculty.

It is true that I was on a break from academics for a few years. The reason for this gap is that as
my mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer back in 2018, I was in no suitable mental
condition to focus on my job or ongoing Master's studies. That's why I took a break voluntarily
to care for my mother. Now that I have decided to come back into research again, I am confident
that with sheer hard work and utmost perseverance, a person of my academic excellence can get
back on track in no time.

As an Electrical Engineer, I wish to unlock the potential of CMOS technology to the fullest so
that people can have better access to state-of-the-art electronic devices. For this purpose, I want
to work in the R&D (Research and Development) wings of leading ASIC enterprises. And in
some distant future, I plan to apply my academic and professional know-how to further the
growth of IC industries in my native country. NC State University's commitment to these
principles would make it the perfect place to groom myself as an effective researcher.

I have chosen NC State University to pursue my graduate studies not only because of the
resources and expertise available, but also for the longer-lasting benefits of an enriched and
comprehensive educational experience.