Planning Grant: Next Generation Electronic System Design (NEXYS)
1160997 Carnegie Mellon University; Diana Marculescu 1160980 Penn State University; Vijay Narayanan 1161008 University of Pittsburgh; Alex Jones
This planning grant proposal targets a new program on next generation electronic system design (dubbed Nexys: Next Generation Electronic System Design), based at Carnegie Mellon University (lead institution), in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University and the University of Pittsburg.
The participating universities propose a framework that will allow a seamless communication channel between academic and industries, and will enable innovation in the semiconductor and electronic design automation field. The proposed research thrusts reflect the expertise of the PIs and include: system-level power/thermal/sustainability modeling, analysis and optimization; system-level reliability, robustness, and system lifetime modeling and optimization, as well as test and diagnosis; on-chip communication fabrics; manufacturing process or system parameter variability impact and mitigation at architecture and system level; 3D integration; advanced memory design, including phase-change and magnetoresitive RAM. In addition, the proposed program will include several cross-cutting research themes targeting different application platforms: embedded, high-performance, cyber-physical, reconfigurable computing and FPGAs.
The proposed framework will provide a direct flow of ideas among participating academic and industrial institutions, as well as student/researcher exchanges, while also building a diverse body of participants, with deep implications in undergraduate/graduate education or beyond. The proposed center plans to enable fast transfer of technology from the academic side to industrial partners, and a steady pipeline of graduate students working on industrial-relevant project with direct feedback from industry. All three institutions are committed to a strong educational and advising program, but diversity will be addressed explicitly in their efforts.
), based at Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University and University of Pittsburgh. We organized a planning workshop in CMU on Oct 24-25. Four faculty members from Penn State attended the event, including one who joined remotely. In addition, multiple students attended the event presenting their posters to the industry participants. This provided a great opprottunity for students to interact with several idustry particpants at this event. The outcomes from the event was multi-fold: (i) to get industrial partners familiarized with the wide array of research activities taking place at the three academic sites; (ii) to brainstorm on determining the most important and timely research directions with industrial relevance; and (iii) to establish the policies, guidelines and formal framework that will enable a free flow of ideas among all participating entities, while allowing for the transfer of technology between academic and industrial partners. We highlighted our capabilities in Domain-specific accelerators, Data Center - Energy Management, 3D stacked technology, Non-volatile memory architetcures, and micro-architecture and compiler support for emerging multicore systems. The planning stage of this grant has helped identify potential interest in funding our research from industry. We are following up on these leads to be able to form this center.
