CAREER: Communication System Design for Future Integrated Circuits

在接下来的十年里，集成电路(IC)通信系统的进步将遇到从系统和体系结构设计到物理技术集成的许多相互依存的挑战。随着系统集成度和工艺规模的不断提高，电互连的性能和可扩展性已成为制约IC设计的主要瓶颈。功率和工艺的变化引起了热和可靠性的挑战，使IC通信系统的设计和运行时间更加复杂。展望未来，新兴的系统和物理技术将极大地改变IC通信的格局--向多核心系统和并行应用的发展增加了通信需求，并要求新的通信解决方案来支持系统级的性能和功能。与此同时，新兴的物理技术，如纳米光子互连和三维(3D)集成，正逐渐变得商业可行。这一职业发展计划的研究目标是系统地研究未来集成电路的通信系统设计，并解决从系统探索、建模和分析到技术集成的相应研究挑战，强调对新兴通信系统和物理技术的统一研究。更具体地说，它将重点解决以下两个系统级和物理挑战：(1)新兴的多核系统将如何改变通信系统设计；(2)新兴的物理技术将如何改变通信系统设计。这项工作旨在发现统一探索IC通信系统设计所需的科学知识，并提供新的通信体系结构和物理解决方案、建模和分析方法、设计方法和优化技术。最终结果将通过芯片设计进行演示和验证。

Over the next decade, advances in integrated circuit (IC) communication systems will encounter a number of interdependent challenges from system and architecture design to physical technology integration. With increasing system integration and technology scaling, the performance and scalability of electrical interconnect have become the primary bottleneck in IC design. Power and process variation induced thermal and reliability challenges further complicate IC communication system design and run-time operation. Looking forward, emerging system and physical technologies will vastly change the landscape of IC communication -- the move towards many-core systems and parallel applications increases the communication requirements and calls for new communication solutions to support system-level performance and functionality. Meanwhile, emerging physical technologies, such as nanophotonic interconnect and three-dimensional (3D) integration, are gradually becoming commercially feasible. Their adoption will offer new opportunities but also pose new challenges to IC communication system design.The research objective of this CAREER development plan is to systematically investigate communication system design for future ICs and address the corresponding research challenges from system exploration, modeling and analysis, to technology integration, emphasizing a unified study of emerging communication system and physical technologies. More specifically, it will focus on addressing the following two system-level and physical challenges: (1)How emerging many-core systems will change the communication system design; and (2) How emerging physical technologies will change the communication system design. This work aims to discover scientific knowledge necessary for a unified exploration of IC communication system design, and deliver new communication architectures and physical solutions, modeling and analysis methods, design methodologies, and optimization techniques. The end results will be demonstrated and validated with chip designs.