Dr Adit Singh
Chair and Professor
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Auburn University
Title: Test Challenges Below 10nm: Timing Failures and Silent Error Corruption
Abstract: Recent presentations from Google and Facebook have reported significant levels of silent data corruption in their large data centers. These transient errors, which can go undetected for long periods and are extremely difficult to diagnose and root cause, have been associated with specific processor cores in these large networks, suggesting faulty or unstable hardware. One possible cause of these failures are statistically rare circuit paths displaying marginal timing due to random manufacturing process variations. Since switching delays are dependent on circuit state and environmental conditions, some marginal paths can at times escape detection during postproduction testing, including system levels tests, but still cause occasional failure in operation. We present analysis from research that is studying the impact of random process variations on the timing of CMOS gates and circuit paths when operating at significantly reduced voltages. Circuit delays are accentuated in low voltage, power saving, operational modes commonly employed by thermal management in advanced processors, increasing the likelihood of timing failures. Recent research, which has been validated on published volume production test data from Intel’s advanced 14nm FinFET technology, suggests ways of leveraging the voltage and timing of the applied timing tests to enhance the detection of marginal timing parts during scan and system level testing. The goal is to reliably screen out these marginal parts during test and prevent them from being deployed in operation.
Dr. Adit Singh is Godbold Endowed Chair and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Auburn University, USA. He earlier served on the faculties of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and held visiting positions at the University of Tokyo, Japan, the Universities of Freiburg and Potsdam in Germany, the Indian Institute of Technology, and as a Fulbright scholar at the University Polytechnic of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain. His technical interests span all aspects of VLSI technology, in particular integrated circuit test and reliability. He has published over three hundred research papers and holds international patents licensed to industry. He has served as a consultant to several semiconductor and EDA companies, including as an expert witness for major patent litigation cases. He has had leadership roles as General Chair/Co-Chair/Program Chair for dozens of international VLSI design and test conferences. He served two terms (2007-11) as Chair of the IEEE Test Technology Technical Council (TTTC), and (2011-15) on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Council on Design Automation (CEDA). Singh received his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur, and the M.S. and Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, all in Electrical Engineering. He is a Life Fellow of IEEE.
Dr Patrick Schaumont
Professor
Computer Engineering
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
Title: Root Cause Analysis in Secure Hardware Design
Abstract: Secure hardware design is critical for ensuring information security and protecting user privacy. However, verifying the security of a hardware design is challenging due to the lack of standard techniques and the fact that security cannot be judged based on physical properties like power, area, or performance. Instead, it must be evaluated in relation to an adversary with specific goals and capabilities. In this presentation, we will discuss recent research on root-cause analysis in secure hardware design, which aims to predict security failures and identify their causes in terms of specific hardware components. This is important because it allows us to identify and address root-cause issues before the hardware is implemented or "taped out." Research in this area has led to advances in pre-silicon hardware security analysis, including techniques for identifying sources of side-channel leakage at the gate or architectural level and evaluating the consequences of faults on the security properties of hardware through fault injection. However, these challenges also require innovative approaches to hardware modeling, simulation, and verification.
Dr. Patrick Schaumont is a Professor of Computer Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). He received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from UCLA in 2004, and his MS in Computer Science from Ghent University in 1990. Prior to joining WPI in 2020, he served as a faculty member at Virginia Tech from 2005 to 2019, and worked as a staff researcher at IMEC in Belgium from 1992 to 2000. He has also been a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Information and Telecommunications Technology in Japan, Laboratoire d'Informatique de Paris 6 in France, and Radboud University in the Netherlands. His research focuses on the design and design methods of secure, efficient, and real-time embedded computing systems. He has served as program co-chair for several conferences in the field of cryptographic and secure engineering, including CHES, HOST, ASHES, and FDTC. In 2007, he received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
Dr. Jeong Bong (JB) Lee
Professor and Associate Department Head
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The University of Texas at Dallas
Title: Liquid Metal: Emerging Material for Soft/Flexible Electronics
Abstract: Gallium-based liquid metals, including EGaIn (a binary alloy of gallium and indium) and Galinstan (a ternary alloy of gallium, indium, and tin) exhibit low melting points (liquid phase at around room temperature), limitless deformability, extremely low vapor pressure, elevated boiling point (1300 °C), and high electrical (3.4 × 106 S/m at 20 °C) and thermal conductivity (16.5 W/m-K at 20 °C). Moreover, in comparison to mercury, gallium-based liquid metal is biocompatible. Gallium-based liquid metal when used in combination with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) finds applications in soft/flexible and wearable electronics. Due to its flexibility and deformability, liquid metal encapsulated in PDMS has recently shown self-healing characteristics after damage on the device. Gallium-based liquid metal has been explored in various applications ranging from electrocardiogram, flexible electrodes, flexible interconnection, strain sensors, pressure sensors, energy harvesting, tunable antenna, meta surfaces, among others. This presentation will give an overview about recent study of liquid metals and their applications.
Dr.Jeong Bong (JB) Lee received the Ph.D. degree from Georgia Tech in 1997. He is currently a Full Professor and associate department head for the graduate program with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Dallas. His current research interests include MEMS, sensors, biomedical devices, and liquid metals. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2001. He has seven U.S. patents, 93 journal papers, more than 170 conference papers published and got more than 5,600 citations. Dr. Lee is an associate editor of the IEEE Sensors Journal, TPC co-chair for the IEEE Sensors 2023 Conference, and has served as TPC co-chair for the IEEE Sensors 2022 Conference, an executive program committee member for the Transducers 2011, an editorial board member for several other journals.
Dr. Albert Kim
Assistant Professor
Medical Engineering
University of South Florida
Title: Acousto-Bioelectronics
Abstract: Ultrasound has recently been explored as an attractive source of power, especially for deeply seated implantable microdevices. A portion of the externally induced ultrasonic wave is picked up by a small receiver, which energizes the rest of the vital system. While all other components have been advanced and miniaturized, the ultrasonic receiver is still a slab of bulk piezoelectric materials, e.g., dice from PZT (lead zirconate titanate). Such a rectangular or disc shape is not an ideal form factor for wireless power transfer due to many challenges, particularly angular sensitivity with respect to an incoming ultrasonic wave. In this talk, I will discuss our recent work in the first demonstration of omnidirectional ultrasonic powering featuring three-dimensional polyhedral shapes. Based on our 3D printing technique of lead-free piezoelectric barium titanate ceramic, we designed four highly symmetric miniaturized regular polyhedral, known as Platonic solids (i.e., cube, octahedron, dodecahedron), and a sphere. Overall, the proposed ultrasonic powering scheme has the potential to be a transformative solution for many implantable biomedical microdevices.
Dr. Albert Kim is currently an Assistant Professor of Medical Engineering at the University of South Florida. He earned a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University in 2008, 2011, and 2015. From 2015 to 2017, he joined Intel Corp. as an R&D engineer. Prior to his current position, he was an Assistant Professor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Temple University (2017-2022). His research interests are in transformative engineering toward medical applications, including Nano/Micro Electromechanical Systems (N/MEMS), microsystems, mobile health (mHealth), and biomimetic sensors and actuators. As a faculty member, Dr. A. Kim received the most prestigious award, NSF CAREER Award, in 2022. He is also a full member of Sigma Xi.
Dr. Erdem Topsakal
Senior Associate Dean
College of Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University
Title: Wireless Medical Telemetry: From Implants to Wearables
Abstract: As the technology evolved, medical applications of sensors and antennas became a focal point for many research groups around the world. Wireless medical telemetry is the delivery of medical information wirelessly from a wearer to a remote receiver. This is extremely important since such technology enables continuous monitoring and can provide timely information to the healthcare provider about the patient's health. In this talk, two distinct research areas in wireless medical telemetry will be discussed; Implantables and Wearables. The research conducted in our research group over the past 15 years in these areas will be shared with the audience and a discussion regarding emerging wireless medical telemetry applications will be outlined.
Dr. Erdem Topsakal is the Senior Associate Dean at the College of Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University responsible for finance, enrollment, marketing, and innovation. Prior to that, he was the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Chair at VCU between May 2015 and July 2022. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Istanbul Technical University and is also an alumn of Harvard Business School. His research areas include antenna design and analysis for medical and military applications, in particular the design of wearable and implantable antennas. He has published over 200 journal and conference papers, book chapters, and a book in these areas. He is the recipient of the URSI young scientist award in 1996, the NATO fellowship in 1997, the Mississippi State University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering outstanding educator award in 2008, the Bagley College of Engineering Research Paper of the Year Award in 2009, and 2010/2011 Mississippi State University State Pride Award in addition to about 16 awards with his undergraduate and graduate students. He served as the Associate Editor for IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters (AWPL) from 2006-2015, Associate Editor for URSI Radio Science Bulletin 2011-2014, and Chair for URSI-USNC Commission K, Electromagnetics in Biology and Medicine from 2012-2015. He is currently the Chair of the USNC URSI student paper competition and serves on the steering committee for IEEE J-ERM (Journal of Electromagnetics, RF and Microwaves in Medicine and Biology. He is the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Digital Communications and serves as the Director of the Central Virginia Node of Commonwealth Cyber Initiative. He was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors VCU Chapter in 2022 based on his patents in implantable biosensors.
Dr. Songnan Yang
Director of Advanced Research & Board Member
Halo Microelectronics
Title: Powering the next generation of computing devices
Abstract:This talk briefly discuss the innovations done by Halo Microelectronics and its partners toward powering the next generating of computing devices. Ranging from high position flexibility resonant wireless charging solutions for mobile devices, to novel circuit topologies to power the next generation Data centers and Chiplets based processors.
Dr. Songnan Yang is Director of Advanced research at Halo Microelectronics, an Analog Integrated Circuit Company specialized in Power Management IC solutions for mobile devices, data centers, automotives etc. Formerly as an Engineer with Intel and Futurewei Technologies, Songnan led the R&D of various innovative power solutions for computing devices. Songnan holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tennessee, He is the author/co-author of more than 100 U.S. issued patents.
Dr. Murali Varanasi
Professor & Founding Chair
Electrical Engineering
UNT
Title: A chronology of Circuits & Systems – Past, Present and Future
Abstract: This presentation will cover the evolution of Circuits and Systems starting from the contributions of the Pioneers of Electrical phenomenon, laws of circuit analysis, electronic devices, and systems to the modern day technological advances in the field. Major contributors that fostered the growth of the field of electronics will be highlighted. The establishment of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society will also be described. Finally, anticipated future advances in circuits and systems will be presented.
Dr. Varanasi received his B.S. degree in Physics from Andhra University and his B.S. degree in Electronics Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology, India in 1957 and 1962 respectively. After working for six years as a senior scientific officer at the Defense Research and Development Laboratory in Hyderabad, India, he pursued his graduate education at the University of Maryland, College Park, Md where he received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering. His research interests include digital communications and coding theory, fault tolerant computing, digital systems design, wireless sensor networks and VLSI design.
Dr. Varanasi served as an Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA from 1973 to 1980 before he joined the faculty of the computer science and engineering department at the University of South Florida where he is a Professor Emeritus. He currently serves as Professor and Founding Chair of the Electrical Engineering department at the University of North Texas.
Dr. Varanasi is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery. He served as vice-president for Educational Activities of the IEEE Computer Society, and the society's Chapter Activities. He is a member of the ABET board of directors. Among his numerous honors, Dr. Varanasi received the University of South Florida’s Professorial Excellence Award, Distinguished Service Award and the Outstanding educator award from the Florida Engineering Society. He has received several awards from the IEEE Computer Society including the Outstanding Contribution Award for Leadership and Contributions to the Model Program in Computer Science and Engineering in 1985 and Golden Core recognition. Dr. Varanasi is elected as a fellow of IEEE for his contributions to Coding for computer fault tolerance and leadership in computer Science and engineering education. Dr. Varanasi is a recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal.