Tutorials in Circuits and Systems – serie

Low Power Circuit Design Using Advanced CMOS Technology is a summary of lectures from the first Advanced CMOS Technology Summer School (ACTS) 2017. The slides are selected from the handouts, while the text was edited according to the lecturers talk.ACTS is a joint activity supported by the IEEE Circuit and System Society (CASS) and the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS). The goal of the school is to provide society members as well researchers and engineers from industry the opportunity to learn about new emerging areas from leading experts in the field. ACTS is an example of high-level continuous education for junior engineers, teachers in academe, and students. ACTS was the results of a successful collaboration between societies, the local chapter leaders, and industry leaders. This summer school was the brainchild of Dr. Zhihua Wang, with strong support from volunteers from both the IEEE SSCS and CASS. In addition, the local companies, Synopsys China and Beijing IC Park, provided support.This first ACTS was held in the summer 2017 in Beijing. The lectures were given by academic researchers and industry experts, who presented each 6-hour long lectures on topics covering process technology, EDA skill, and circuit and layout design skills. The school was hosted and organized by the CASS Beijing Chapter, SSCS Beijing Chapter, and SSCS Tsinghua Student Chapter. The co-chairs of the first ACTS were Dr. Milin Zhang, Dr. Hanjun Jiang and Dr. Liyuan Liu. The first ACTS was a great success as illustrated by the many participants from all over China as well as by the publicity it has been received in various media outlets, including Xinhua News, one of the most popular news channels in China.

The field of AI is not new to researchers, as its foundations were established in the 1950s. After many decades of inattention, there has been a dramatic resurgence of interest in AI, fueled by a confluence of several factors. The benefits of decades of Dennard scaling and Moore’s law miniaturization, coupled with the rise of highly distributed processing, have led to massively parallel systems well suited for handling big data. The widespread availability of big data, necessary for training AI algorithms, is another important factor. Finally, the greatly increased compute power and memory bandwidths have enabled deeper networks and new algorithms capable of accuracy rivaling that of human perception.Already AI has shown success in many diverse areas, including finance (portfolio management, investment strategies), marketing, health care, transportation, gaming, defense, robotics, computer vision, education, search engines, online assistants, image/facial recognition, anomaly detection, spam filtering, online customer service, biometric sensors, and predictive maintenance, to name a few. Despite these remarkable advances, the human brain is still superior in many ways – including, notably, energy efficiency and one-shot learning – giving researchers new areas to explore. In summary, AI research and applications will continue with vigor in software, algorithms, and hardware accelerators. These exciting developments have also brought new questions of ethics and privacy, areas which must be studied in tandem with technological advances.To continue the success story of AI, the AI Compute symposium was launched with the sponsorship of IBM, IEEE CAS and EDS for the first time. The aim of this publication is to compile all the materials presented by the renowned speakers in the symposium into a book format, serving as a learning tool for the audience.This book contains two broad topics: general AI advances (chapters 1-5) and neuromorphic computing directions (chapters 6-9). Technical topics discussed in the book include:1.Research Directions in AI algorithms and systems 2.An ARM perspective on hardware requirements and challenges for AI3.The new Era of AI hardware4.AI and the Opportunity for Unconventional Computing Platforms 5.Thermodynamic Computing 6.Brain-like cognitive engineering system7.BRAINWAY and Nano - Abacus architecture: Brain-inspired Cognitive Computing using Energy Efficient Physical Computational Structures, Algorithms and Architecture Co-Design8.Applying Lessons from Nature for Today’s Computing Challenges9.Emerging Memories - RRAM Fabric for Neuromorphic Computing Applications

Cyber-physical systems are the natural extension of the so-called “Internet of Things”. They are “systems of collaborating computational elements controlling physical entities”. Cyber Physical Systems of Systems (CPSoS) are considered “The Next Computing Revolution” after Mainframe computing (60’s-70’s), Desktop computing & Internet (80’s-90’s) and Ubiquitous computing (00’s); because all aspects of daily life are rapidly evolving towards humans interacting amongst themselves as well as their environment via computational devices (often mobile), and because in most cases systems will employ their computational capabilities to interact amongst themselves. CPSoS enable the physical world to merge with the cyber one. Using sensors, the embedded systems monitor and collect data from physical processes, such as the steering of a vehicle, energy consumption or human health functions. The systems are networked making the data globally available. CPSoS make it possible for software applications to directly interact with events in the physical world, for example to measure and react to changes in blood pressure or peaks in energy consumption. Embedded hardware and software systems crucially expand the functionality and competitiveness of vehicles, aircraft, medical equipment, production plants and household appliances. Connecting these systems to a virtual environment of globally networked services and information systems opens completely new areas of innovation and novel business platforms.Future CPSoS will have many sophisticated, interconnected parts that must instantaneously exchange, parse, and act on detailed data in a highly coordinated manner. Continued advances in science and engineering will be necessary to enable advances in design and development of these complex systems. Multi- scale, multi-layer, multi-domain, and multi-system integrated infrastructures will require new foundations in system science and engineering. Scientists and engineers with an understanding of otherwise physical systems will need to work in tandem with computer and information scientists to achieve effective, workable designs. In this tutorial, basic and advanced issues on the design of the future heterogeneous CPSoS are presented including relevant Blockchain technologies, reconfigurable systems, advanced sensor interfaces and human-centered design processes. Certain advanced tools for the design and implementation of the cyber parts of the CPSoS (i.e. FPGA design tools from Xilinx) are also covered.

Internet-of-Things (IoT) can be envisaged as a dynamic network of interconnected physical and virtual entities (“things”), with their own identities and attributes, seamlessly integrated in order to e.g. actively participate in economic or societal processes, interact with services, and react autonomously to events while sensing the environment. By enabling things to connect and becoming recognizable, while providing them with intelligence, informed and context based decisions are expected in a broad range of domains spanning from health and elderly care to energy efficiency, either providing business competitive advantages to companies, either addressing key social concerns. The level of connectivity and analytical intelligence provided by the IoT paradigm is expected to allow creating new services that would not be feasible by other means. This CAS4IoT book targets post-graduate students and design engineers, with the skills to understand and design a broader range of analog, digital and mixed-signal circuits and systems, in the field of IoT, spanning from data converters for sensor interfaces to radios, ensuring a good balance between academia and industry, combined with a judicious selection of worldwide distinguished authors.

Enabling Technologies for the Internet of Things: Wireless Circuits, Systems and Networks collects slides and notes from the lectures given in the 2017 Seasonal School Enabling Technologies for the Internet-of-Things, supported by IEEE CAS Society and by INTEL funding, and organized by Prof. Sergio Saponara, and Prof. Giuliano Manara.The book discusses new trends in Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies, considering technological and training aspects, with special focus on electronic and electromagnetic circuits and systems. IoT involves research and design activities both in analog and in digital circuit/signal domains, including focus on sensors interfacing and conditioning, energy harvesting, low-power signal processing, wireless connectivity and networking, functional safety (FuSa). FuSa is one of the emerging key issues in IoT applications in safety critical domain like industry 4.0, autonomous and connected vehicles and e-health. Our world is becoming more and more interconnected. Currently it is estimated that two hundred billion smart objects will be part of the IoT by 2020. This new scenario will pave the way to innovative business models and will bring new experiences in everyday life. The challenge is offering products, services and comprehensive solutions for the IoT, from technology to intelligent and connected objects and devices to connectivity and data centers, enhancing smart home, smart factory, autonomous driving cars and much more, while at the same time ensuring the highest safety standards. In safety-critical contexts, where a fault could jeopardize the human life, safety becomes a key aspect.