【Date】: 2018-1.2
【Sources】: 清華大學首頁故事
The 2018 International Solid-State Circuits Symposium (ISSCC), which is known as the Olympic Games in the field of IC chip design, will be held in San Francisco in February next year. The Department of Electrical Engineering of NTHU develops AI memory chip technology. A total of 4 related papers have been selected. Ranked first among universities in Taiwan; and ranked sixth among global universities, which is same as University of California, Berkeley.
The NTHU Memory Design Lab team led by Professor Zhang Meng-Fan has 3 papers selected by ISSCC, which is more than 1 selected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of Illinois. It is the top laboratory with the most published memory circuit design papers in the world.
清華電機系師生投稿國際固態電路研討會(ISSCC)獲選4篇論文，與美國柏克萊加州大學並列全球大學第六
Professor Zhang Meng-Fan integrated the laboratories of four different research fields in the Department of Electrical Engineering, and led students to develop a "non-volatile memory internal computing circuit" that is more suitable for use in the field of AI, the related research paper were selected into the ISSCC.
"Non-volatile memory" refers to computer memory that does not disappear when the current is turned off. It is now widely used in portable electronic products. Teacher Zhang Meng-Fan pointed out that the memory in the past did not need to have computing functions, but how to make the memory synchronize processing and storage in the future has become the battlefield of the next generation of artificial intelligence technology.
Professor Zhang Meng-Fan said that teachers and students put computing circuits into memory so that the chip can store data and calculations at the same time, improve processing efficiency and save energy. In the future, it will be applied to AI products to effectively improve battery life. Prof. Zhang mentioned “Drones can continue to fly in the air for 6 to 10 minutes. By applying new computing chips, drones can continue to fly in the air for 60 minutes, a nearly 10-fold increase. "
Zhang Meng-Fan's team collaborated with TSMC to design another ultra-high-speed read circuit to make the world's fastest read STT-MRAM chip. It is considered as the next generation of memory material. This research was also selected by ISSCC.
Professor Xie Zhi-Cheng's team improved the capacitor array cutting method and multiple sampling techniques, and successfully translated sound, light, and odor into digital signals that can be used in the circuit. This research paper was also selected by ISSCC.
清華電機系老師呂仁碩(左起)、謝志成、張孟凡、鄭桂忠帶領學生投稿國際固態電路研討會(ISSCC)，獲選4篇論文
Mr. Zhang Meng-Fan said that the International Solid-State Circuit Symposium is known as the IC (Olympics) Olympic Games. The world ’s most advanced and up-to-date technologies are published in this hall. Due to the strict requirements of the seminar, it is not only necessary to put forward the theory, but also to produce physical chips. This time, the team asked TSMC to assist in the production of the participating chips. In order to get out the required data of the chip within the deadline, the teachers and students stayed up to experiment, "At that time, the Red-bull was our best friend."
Chen Wei-Hao, PhD student of Institute of Electronics, participated in the research team of Teacher Zhang Meng-Fan. He laughed and said that in the final stage of the experiment, each person slept less than 6 hours a day on average, almost using the laboratory as a home. In the meantime, some people wanted to give up, relying on their peers to cheer each other up until the last minute.
The wave of artificial intelligence is chamging the globe. Mr. Zhang Meng-Fan said that in recent years, the Department of Tsinghua University has actively cultivated and integrated research in the field of AI, offering various courses, including deep learning, big data analysis, machine intelligence, high-performance computer computing and IC chip design, and has become Taiwanese AI research and chip design center.
A total of 16 papers from Taiwan were selected by ISSCC, only behind the United States and South Korea, ranking third in the world. Among them, there are 9 academic papers, including 4 from National Tsing Hua University, 3 from National Jiao Tung University, and 1 from National Taiwan University and 1 from National Cheng Kung University. 7 industry papers were selected, including 3 from MediaTek, 3 from TSMC, and 1 from eMemory Technology.
It is worth mentioning that this is the first submission for eMemory Technology, and the paper was selected. The founder of eMemory Technology is Dr. Xu Qing-Xiang, an alumnus of NTHU, who is also the former director of NTHU Electronics Engineering Institute. The paper published by eMemory Technology is an innovative PUF design solution "NeoPUF" that can effectively solve the traditional PUF high bit error rate and reliability problems.
＊: The International Solid-State Circuits Symposium (ISSCC) is sponsored by the International Solid-State Circuits Society (IEEE) and has a history of 65 years. It has accepted contributions from academia and industry around the world. With test data, and the data must also break the world record, it is a leading indicator of global research and development trends in the field of advanced semiconductors and solid-state circuits.
清華電機師生研製全新效能晶片，投稿國際固態電路研討會(ISSCC)獲選4篇論文
清華電機系老師呂仁碩(左起)、謝志成、張孟凡、鄭桂忠帶領學生投稿國際固態電路研討會(ISSCC)獲選4篇論文