Seminar by Francky Catthoor: Where digital becomes almost-neural: variability phenomena at the extreme miniaturization limit of 'classical' microchips

Title

Where digital becomes almost-neural: variability phenomena at the
extreme miniaturization limit of 'classical' microchips.

Abstract

When transistor sizes are pushed to the physical limits of
miniaturization, effects that are known from brains and analog
neuromorphic substrates appear and have to be dealt with. These
phenomena include stochasticity, drifting dynamics, device mismatch,
importance of signal travel delays and multi-timescale synchronization,
aging. In the world of 'classical' digital microchip engineering, these
effects are recognized and dealt with by architectural and
control-theoretic measures.

Francky Catthoor is an expert with a life-long research record on (digital) microchip design, and he has also collaborated with neuromorphic computing researchers. In this special seminar, he will give an informal introduction to the challenges of extreme miniaturization, after which we will enjoy an open discussion round. It is not unlikely that we can learn a lot for our CogniGron
research!