Events Listing

Moore’s Law, 1965-2016

Everyone knows that technology drives history, but what shapes technology?  A leading contender is Moore’s Law, initially offered as a prophesy by Gordon Moore in 1965.  It expanded into a full-blown force in technology owing to dramatic changes within the semiconductor industry, three key policy shifts in the US federal government, and the rise of national and international roadmapping efforts (NTRS and ITRS) across the semiconductor industry.  The deep enthusiasm for globalization supported Moore’s Law for nearly three decades.  Indeed, Moore’s Law looked unstoppable — until the arrival of a “thermal wall” at Intel and AMD around 2004, then the rise of complex multi-core CPUs (that prompted a “hard toggle” with “scaling dead”). Roadmapping no longer focused on “device size” (and speed and density); ITRS was terminated in 2016. The successor efforts to ITRS — the IEEE’s IRDS and “Rebooting Computing” initiatives seem (to me) not so strongly industry-centered.  Still active, Rock’s Law leads to semiconductor “fabs” costing upwards of $20 billion: this talk starts with a glimpse inside.

About the speaker

Tom Misa directed the University of Minnesota’s Charles Babbage Institute (2006-17), teaching in the Program for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine and a faculty member in the ECE department. He was President of the international Society for the History of Technology (2019-20) and is presently Past President; he is publishing articles on women in computing in Communications of the ACM and elsewhere. The Johns Hopkins University Press recently published Leonardo the Internet (3rd edition), from which this talk is drawn.

SASE Labs is ready to showcase its achievements this year. They will be showing off their project with the Belwin Conservancy, demos performed for STEM booths at the Minnesota State Fair and Science Museum of Minnesota, and a machine-learned recycling organizer. There will be light refreshments (momos and juice) at the showcase. Join us to learn about the incredible projects and celebrate the accomplishments of the talented SASE Lab members!!

RSVP for the symposium

ASE Graduate Commencement Ceremony

The Arts, Sciences, and Engineering Graduate Commencement is hosted by the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science and Engineering.

April 29, 2022 | Noon
3M Arena at Mariucci | 4 Oak Street (main doors)
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Doors open at 11 a.m. | Tickets not required

Watch the ceremony LIVE online at z.umn.edu/asewebcast22 at noon Central time (1 p.m. Eastern).

Contact: asecommencement@umn.edu

We will celebrate our graduating MS and PhD students at the ECE pre-commencement reception on Friday, April 29th from 9:30-11:00am. We will have coffee/tea and light refreshments available on the 4th floor atrium of Keller Hall. We will also celebrate our recent alumni who did not get to participate in commencement previously because of COVID restrictions. 

Come and see what our freshmen have built at the ECE Internet of Things project showcase. Projects stem from the EE 1301 course, which  provides freshmen in ECE (and other majors) the opportunity to develop an open-ended hands-on project. The only requirements are that the project sense the environment, actuates or changes the environment, and connects to the internet.

ECE invites you to come see the exciting projects created by ECE seniors who have worked together in teams for one semester to design, develop, and deliver projects that utilize novel engineering solutions.

Nanoelectronics and VLSI

The quest for sustainable growth in computing performance and expanded functional capabilities of information technology and communication (ICT) products requires significant improvements in the energy-efficiency from the underlying technologies to the systems, architectures, algorithms, software layers. Fundamental changes in the information representation and processing may also be necessary to enable higher cognitive capabilities in artificial intelligence with the necessary energy-efficiency for widespread use. In this talk I will discuss challenges and research opportunities pertaining emerging transistors, memories, and 3D interconnect fabrics while also addressing the necessary completeness of the metrics to be met in order for the results of those research to become viable alternatives to state-of-the art technologies and their projected evolutionary paths. I will also briefly talk about hyper-dimensional information representation and processing for AI applications.

About the speaker

Carlos H. Diaz earned his bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and physics and his master’s degree in electrical engineering from Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is Senior Director in Research and Development, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. He has published over 100 technical papers, holds over 200 US patents, and has published one book. Dr. Diaz was elected an IEEE Fellow in 2008 for his contributions to deep-submicron foundry technology. In 2011, he was co-recipient of the Annual Innovation Breakthrough Award, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan R.O.C., conferred to TSMC's 28nm logic technology. He was the recipient of the 2016 IEEE Andrew Grove Award for sustained contributions to and leadership in foundry advanced CMOS logic transistor technology. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award in Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018.

This informational event is open to all who would like to learn more about the field of neuromodulation. There will be a short presentation, followed by an interactive device showcase to display the therapeutic technology and treatment methodology. Attendees will also get a chance to explore the VR (virtually reality) room where they can explore brain anatomy. Please RSVP using the link and invite anyone who is interested. Join us on Monday, April 18th from 5:30-6:30 pm CT at the Medical Device Center in Moos Tower!

Plug-and-Play: A Framework for Integrating Physics and Machine Learning in CT Imaging

This talk presents emerging methods for the integration of physics-based and machine learning (ML) models with novel acquisition methods to push CT technology well beyond traditional limits. For example, while ML methods such as deep neural networks offer unprecedented ability to model complex behavior, they typically lack the flexibility and accuracy of traditional physics-based methods for modeling imaging sensors. In order to address this dilemma, we present plug-and-play methods as a general framework for getting the ``best of both worlds’’ by integrating traditional physics-based models based on probability distributions with action-based ML models. Throughout the talk, we present state-of-the-art examples using imaging modalities including computed tomography (CT), transmission electron microscopy (STEM), synchrotron beam imaging, optical sensing, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and ultrasound imaging.

About the speaker 

Charles A. Bouman is the Showalter Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University. His research is in the area of Computational Imaging, with applications in medical, scientific, and commercial imaging. He received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Pennsylvania, M.S. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1989. He is a member of the National Academy of Inventors, a Fellow of the IEEE, AIMBE, IS&T, and SPIE. He is the recipient of the 2021 IEEE Signal Processing Society, Claude Shannon-Harry Nyquist Technical Achievement Award, the 2014 Electronic Imaging Scientist of the Year award, and the IS&T’s Raymond C. Bowman Award; and in 2020, his paper on Plug-and-Play Priors won the SIAM Imaging Science Best Paper Prize.

Rising to the Moment lecture series

Register now for the second installment in the College of Science and Engineering’s new public lecture series, "Rising to the Moment," featuring Dr. Jayshree Seth, a 3M corporate scientist and the company’s first chief science advocate. Dr. Seth will discuss her unique role at 3M and the importance of diversity and equity in STEM.

Event details and registration