I-Corps: Trimbit Technologies Customer Discovery

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力源于我们的技术在物联网领域实现未开发的能源效率、成本、规模和安全优势的潜力。在驱动物联网应用的低功耗嵌入式系统中，能效是决定关键系统特性（如尺寸、重量、成本、可靠性和寿命）的主要因素。同样，安全性对于物联网系统至关重要，物联网系统几乎托管了我们所有的数据。个人的、经济的、健康的，以及其他的。由于其极端的能源限制和无处不在的部署规模，这些系统传统上倾向于低成本和低功耗，而不是安全性，从而暴露了信息安全攻击的巨大攻击面。已经报道了几个大规模的漏洞利用。通过为安全和能源效率提供自动化和低开销的解决方案，我们的技术有可能对物联网领域产生颠覆性影响，预计到2020年物联网市场规模将达到4570亿美元。此外，我们提供的解决方案有可能提高广大民众的信息安全，并允许更广泛地部署物联网系统，从而提高生活质量和对世界的了解。I-Corps项目围绕的技术可以积极优化微处理器，以节省能源，降低成本和安全性。这些技术基于新颖的自动化系统分析方法，可以识别设计中未使用的部分，并利用这些信息来提高系统效率。这些技术已经证明，通过大量的应用感知优化和设计技术，超低功耗微处理器的能效和面积降低了一个数量级以上。这些技术还允许软件程序员评估其软件在其将被部署的处理器上的信息流安全性，从而使软件能够通过安全保证认证。我们的研究和初步客户发现的结果表明，它有可能影响半导体行业。通过我们的技术，可以显著降低特定应用处理器的设计和运营成本，加快此类处理器的生产，使其能够更广泛地部署，并为DIY打印处理器等新市场提供牵引力。此外，降低驱动物联网（IoT）的低功耗处理器的能耗会对这些设备的寿命、可靠性、尺寸和成本产生重大影响。随着物联网革命的继续，这些设备在半导体市场的主导地位将继续增长。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识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 broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project stems from the potential of our technology to enable untapped energy efficiency, cost, size, and security benefits in the IoT space. In the low-power embedded systems that drive IoT applications, energy efficiency is the primary factor that determines critical system characteristics such as size, weight, cost, reliability, and lifetime. Likewise, security is critical for IoT systems, which are entrusted with nearly all our data ? personal, financial, health-critical, and otherwise. Because of their extreme energy constraints and ubiquitous scale of deployment, these systems have traditionally favored low cost and low power over security, exposing a huge attack surface for information security attacks. Several large-scale exploits have already been reported. By providing automated and low-overhead solutions for security and energy efficiency, our technology has the potential to make a disruptive impact on the IoT space, which is predicted to have a market size of $457 billion by 2020. Additionally, the solutions we provide have the potential to improve information security for the population at large and allow broader deployment of IoT systems that promise to improve quality of life and understanding of the world.This I-Corps project is built around technologies that enable aggressive optimization of microprocessors for energy savings, cost reduction, and security. The technologies are based on novel, automated system analysis approaches that identify unused parts of a design and leverage the information to improve system efficiency. The technologies have demonstrated reductions of over an order of magnitude in energy efficiency and area for ultra-low-power microprocessors through a host of application-aware optimization and design techniques. The technologies also allow software programmers to evaluate information flow security for their software on the processor(s) where it will be deployed, enabling software to be certified with security guarantees. Results from our research and initial customer discovery indicate potential to impact the semiconductor industry. Through our technology, design and operating costs for application-specific processors can be significantly reduced, accelerating production of such processors, allowing them to be more widely deployed, and providing traction for new markets such as DIY printed processors. Also, reducing energy for low-power processors that drive the internet of things (IoT) can significantly impact lifetime, reliability, size, and cost of these devices that continue to grow in dominance of the semiconductor market as the IoT revolution continues.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.