The Oxford Circuits and Systems Conference (OXCAS) was organised on 19th of September 2017 as a reincarnation of the Analog Signal Processing Conference, which has been running biennially, in Oxford, since 1992. It began as a joint venture between Oxford Brookes University, Imperial College London and IBM Research UK. It has attracted a range of papers and speakers in analogue design from groups and individuals across the world. Past sponsors have included Analog Devices, Dialog Semiconductors, IBM Research UK, The IET, The IEEE, Saul Research, Texas Instruments UK and Toumaz Technology. The 2017 edition was organised jointly by the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University in the leafy campus of Somerville College, Oxford. Sponsored by PFU Imaging (Fujitsu) and the IET, the conference provided a free platform to engineers, students and researchers to exchange information and ideas. The conference does not charge a registration fee to ensure that attendees are not financially burdened. In addition, being a 1-day meeting, we hope to keep travel costs low as well.

The conference started with an invited speech by Prof. W. Rhett Davis of North Carolina State University, Rayleigh, USA on Physical Design of a Stacked Heterogeneous Multi-Core Processor. He showcased 3-d stacked processor design on Global Foundries 130 nm process and stacked using the Ziptronix face-to-face (F2F). 25 papers were then presented during the rest of the day, which covered almost the entire breadth of circuit design. At one end, we had papers on classical circuits like ADCs, Image Sensors, oscillators and amplifiers. At the other end, we had futuristic circuits with memristors and enabling Hierarchical Temporal Memory. New results in neural circuits, noise, mems devices and circuit layouts were also presented. Of these 12 of the papers have been selected after a double review process for selection in this special issue.

Oxford region has a long history of activity in electrical circuits and the conference reflects this longstanding tradition. Way back in 1929, a readership was established in the engineering laboratory of the University of Oxford. This attracted Eric Bailleul Moullin, later the president of Institute of Electrical Engineers. Moullin spent the next 10 years in Oxford reporting a number of studies on high frequency circuits, including temperature effects of inductors and condensors. The start of second world war led to Moulin working with Admiralty Signals Establishment and later Metropolitan-Vickers.

After the war, Oxford was also host to Rudolf Komfner’s research on travelling wave tubes as microwave amplifiers. Amongst its other academics and alumnus, the university counts Robert Van de Graaf (High voltage generator bearing his name), Denys Wilkinson (Analogue to Digital Converter, bearing his name), Ralph Hartley (Oscillator bearing his name), Tim Berners Lee (Word wide web) and Tony Hoare (Quick Sort algorithm). In parallel to the University of Oxford, a second technical school was established in Oxford in 1891. Renamed as Oxford College of Technology in 1956, as Oxford Polytechnic in 1970 and finally as Oxford Brookes University in 1992, it had a significant contribution to the development of electrical engineering teaching in Oxford area. Francis John Lidgey, Emeritus professor there was instrumental in organising this conference in its early years as well as vital contributions to filter circuits. The current generation of academics at the two institutions hope to continue these traditions in future.