IRES Track I: U.S.-Japan International Research Experience for Students on Superconducting Electronics

这个IRES项目的目标是为美国学生提供超导电子和电路的国际研究经验，作为日本横滨国立大学（YNU）的未来计算范例，该大学拥有世界上最强大的超导电子和电路研究中心之一。该项目将选择五（5）研究生和两（2）本科生全国范围内，每年支持他们访问YNU超过八（8）周。该项目将使美国学生能够与YNU的教师导师合作，对下一代超导电子进行高质量的研究。这些经历使美国学生在职业生涯的关键早期阶段接触到国际研究界。通过参加该计划，美国学生将获得超导电子研究，日本文化以及在国际环境中表演和合作的广泛经验。这些经验也将通过个人社交媒体、基于Web 2.0的论坛、精心整合的活动（如针对本科生、少数民族和代表性不足的群体的研究）以及针对当地学校的外联活动分享给更广泛的社区。这将有利于STEM和未被充分代表的学生教育以及美国超导和半导体产业的发展。以低能耗和超快开关速度而闻名的基于约瑟夫森结的超导逻辑系列已经被提出并实现用于处理模拟和数字信号。由于其在操作速度和能量效率方面的上级潜力，它已被认为是取代最先进的CMOS的重要候选者。该项目包括精心规划的征聘、准备、辅导和旅行后活动。所提出的研究解决了电路设计，电子设计自动化和超导电子学应用中迫切需要解决的基本问题。第一个项目涉及AQFP技术与深度学习系统的有效实现的集成，后者是硬件和人工智能的核心研究课题。第二个项目涉及AQFP和RSFQ超导电路的有效设计，将大大提高性能，效率和可靠性。第三个项目旨在开发超导电子学的设计自动化工具流程，这是目前缺乏的，将大大减少超导电路的开发时间。预计通过与YNU的密切合作，这些项目所取得的突破将对未来的超导电子发展和超级计算系统以及美国相应领域的技术产生重大影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The objective of this IRES project is to provide U.S. students with international research experience in superconducting electronics and circuits as future computing paradigms in Yokohama National University (YNU), Japan, which has one of the world's strongest research center in superconducting electronics and circuits. The project will select five (5) graduate students and two (2) undergraduate students nation-wide each year and support them to visit YNU over a period of eight (8) weeks. The project will enable U.S. students to conduct high-quality research on next-generation superconducting electronics, in collaboration with their faculty mentors in YNU. Such experiences expose U.S. students to the international research community at a critical early stage in their careers. Through participating in this program, U.S. students will gain extensive experience on the research of superconducting electronics, on the culture in Japan, and on performing and collaborating in an international environment in general. The experience will also be shared to the broader community through the personal social media, Web 2.0 based forum, carefully integrated activities such as research for undergraduate students, minorities and underrepresented groups, as well as outreach events for local schools. It will be beneficial for the STEM and underrepresented student education as well as the advancing of superconducting and semiconductor industry in U.S.Being widely-known for low energy dissipation and ultra-fast switching speed, Josephson Junction-based superconductor logic families have been proposed and implemented to process analog and digital signals. It has been perceived to be important candidate to replace state-of-the-art CMOS due to the superior potential in operation speed and energy efficiency. The project contains well-planned recruitment, preparation, mentoring and post-trip activities. The proposed research address fundamental problems in the circuit design, electronic design automation, and applications in superconducting electronics that need to be addressed urgently. The first project deals with the integration of AQFP technology with the efficient implementation of deep learning systems, where the latter is a core research topic in hardware and AI. The second project deals with efficient design of AQFP and RSFQ superconducting circuits and will greatly enhance the performance, efficiency and reliability. The third project aims to develop a design automation toolflow of superconducting electronics, which is currently lacking and will significantly reduce the development time of superconducting circuits. It is anticipated that with the close interaction with YNU, the breakthroughs made from these projects can have a significant impact on future superconducting electronics development and supercomputing systems, as well as the technology in the U.S. in corresponding areas.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.