Abstract:
Modern electronic devices consist of a multitude of IC components: the processor, the memory, the RF modem and the baseband chip (in wireless devices), and the graphics processor, are only some examples of components scattered throughout a device. The increase of the volume of digital data that needs to be accessed and processed by such devices calls for ever faster communication between these IC’s. Faster communication, however, often translates to higher susceptibility to various types of noise, and inevitably to a higher power consumption in order to combat the noise. This increase in power consumption is, for the most part, far from linear, and cannot be easily compensated for by Moore’s Law. In this talk I will give a short overview of problems encountered in chip-to-chip communication, and will advocate the use of novel coding techniques to solve those problems. I will also briefly talk about Kandou Bus, and some of the approaches the company is taking to design, implement, and market such solution.
Bio:
Professor Amin Shokrollahi is a prominent computer scientist, mathematician, and electrical engineer. He is currently a Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics at EPFL, Switzerland and CEO of Kandou Bus. Professor Shokrollahi has been at the forefront of research in information communication for the last 20 years and is best known for key inventions in digital communications, including the invention of Raptor Codes (a class of codes that has been standardised by 3GPP,DVB, IPTV, and other standards bodies), Tornado Codes, and more recently Chordal Codes for Chip-to-Chip Communication. He is a fellow of IEEE and a recipient of the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (2012), IEEE Information Theory Society Information Theory Paper Award (2002). the IEEE Eric E. Sumner Communications Theory Award (2007), the joint IT/ComSoc Best Paper Award (2008), an ERC Advanced Grant (2009) and an ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2011), the ISSCC Jan van Vessem Award for the best European paper (2015), among many other awards. In 2011 he founded the company Kandou Bus which uses novel approaches from discrete mathematics, algorithm design, and electronics for the design of fast and energy efficient chip-to-chip communication links. Previously, he has been the Chief Scientist of Digital Fountain until the company’s acquisition by Qualcomm in 2009, a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs (1998-2000), an Assistant Professor at the University of Bonn (1991-1995) where he also received his PhD, and a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley (1995-1998). Professor Shokrollahi’s research interests cover coding theory, discrete mathematics, algorithm design, theoretical computer science, signal processing, networking, computational algebra, algebraic complexity theory, and most recently, electronics, areas where he has more than 100 publications, and more than 70 pending and granted patents.