SHF: Small: Printed Computer Systems

SHF：小型：印刷计算机系统

• 批准号: 2006763
• 负责人: Rakesh Kumar
• 金额: $ 49.98万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2006763&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SHF; Small; Printed; Computer; Systems

While computing appears to be ubiquitous in today's society and economy, a large number of important domains are still minimally touched. Consider the over 10-trillion dollar fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market, for example. Disposables such as packaged foods, beverages, toiletries, over-the-counter drugs, and other consumables are sold largely without any embedded computing devices that could help with identification and tracking, quality monitoring, brand authentication, or interactivity. The primary reason why FMCG domains as well as domains such as low-end healthcare (e.g., bandages and wound dressings), agriculture, and environment have not seen much penetration of computing is the cost limitation of today's silicon-based computing systems. Silicon-based systems continue to cost much more than the cost requirements of these domains. For example, item-level tagging of several FMCG products must have costs equivalent to that of a barcode, which silicon-based systems cannot meet due to the high manufacturing, testing, and assembly costs of such systems. Printed electronics has emerged as promising technology to target such application domains. Printing technologies often rely on maskless, portable, and additive manufacturing methods which can greatly reduce costs and production timelines. Such technologies also lead to devices that are conformable and nontoxic. This work will focus on making this method cheap, reliable and flexible. The outcomes can ensure electronic tagging of all components and parts of the manufacturing economy. Students will be trained in a unique and up-and-coming interdisciplinary area at the intersection of architecture, circuits, and materials science. Prior work on printing active electronics has largely focused on fabricating simple circuits. No prior work has explored the architecture, design, or optimization space of printed computer systems, e.g., microprocessors and accelerators. It is not surprising since such exploration requires Process Design Kits (PDKs) that have started becoming available only recently. A synthesis and physical design standard cell library is a pre-requisite for an architectural exploration. This project will develop standard cell libraries for Electrolyte Gated FET and CNT-thin film transistor printed technologies calibrated with fabrication measurements. These libraries (to be made public for broader use) are critical for design space exploration of printed computer systems. The investigator will develop and prototype different microarchitectural building blocks of a printed computer system. Building blocks to be developed and prototyped include instruction and data memory, ALUs, etc., for printed microprocessors, and decision trees and perceptrons for printed machine learning accelerators. These building blocks will then be used, in conjunctions with the developed standard cell libraries, to explore the design space of printed computer systems. Expected outcome of the exploration includes instruction set architecture and microarchitectural design principles for printed microprocessors and accelerators, and optimizations to minimize area and power of printed hardware. Overall, the research will help democratize hardware fabrication making computing ubiquitous even in disposable ultra-low-cost domains.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.

虽然计算在当今社会和经济中似乎无处不在，但大量重要领域仍然很少触及。例如，考虑超过10万亿美元的快速消费品（FMCG）市场。包装食品、饮料、化妆品、非处方药和其他消耗品等一次性用品的销售基本上没有任何嵌入式计算设备，这些设备可以帮助识别和跟踪、质量监控、品牌认证或交互。快速消费品领域以及低端医疗保健等领域（例如，绷带和伤口敷料）、农业和环境还没有看到太多的计算渗透，这是当今基于硅的计算系统的成本限制。硅基系统的成本仍然远远高于这些领域的成本要求。例如，几种快速消费品产品的物品级标签必须具有与条形码相当的成本，而硅基系统由于这种系统的高制造、测试和组装成本而无法满足。印刷电子已经成为针对这些应用领域的有前途的技术。印刷技术通常依赖于无掩模、便携式和增材制造方法，这些方法可以大大降低成本和生产时间。这些技术也导致了设备的适应性和无毒。这项工作的重点是使这种方法廉价、可靠和灵活。这些成果可以确保对制造业经济的所有组件和部件进行电子标记。学生将在建筑，电路和材料科学交叉的独特和新兴的跨学科领域接受培训。印刷有源电子器件的先前工作主要集中在制造简单的电路。没有先前的工作已经探索了印刷计算机系统的架构、设计或优化空间，例如，微处理器和加速器。这并不奇怪，因为这样的探索需要最近才开始可用的过程设计工具包（PDK）。综合和物理设计标准单元库是架构探索的先决条件。 本项目将开发标准单元库，用于电解质选通FET和CNT薄膜晶体管印刷技术，并通过制造测量进行校准。这些库（将公开以供更广泛使用）对于印刷计算机系统的设计空间探索至关重要。研究人员将开发和原型印刷计算机系统的不同微架构构建块。待开发和原型化的构建块包括指令和数据存储器、ALU等，用于印刷微处理器，以及用于印刷机器学习加速器的决策树和感知器。然后，这些积木将被用来与开发的标准单元库结合，探索印刷计算机系统的设计空间。探索的预期成果包括印刷微处理器和加速器的指令集架构和微架构设计原则，以及最小化印刷硬件面积和功耗的优化。总的来说，这项研究将有助于硬件制造的民主化，使计算无处不在，即使在一次性的超低成本领域。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得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的支持。

项目成果

Printed Stochastic Computing Neural Networks

印刷随机计算神经网络

• DOI: 10.23919/date51398.2021.9474254
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Design and Test in Europe (DATE
• 作者: Weller, Dennis;Bleier, Nathaniel;Hefenbrock, Michael;Aghassi-Hagmann, Jasmin;Beigl, Michael;Kumar, Rakesh;Tahoori, Mehdi
• 通讯作者: Tahoori, Mehdi

Exploiting Short Application Lifetimes for Low Cost Hardware Encryption in Flexible Electronics

利用较短的应用生命周期实现柔性电子产品中的低成本硬件加密

• DOI: 10.23919/date56975.2023.10137258
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: IEEE
• 作者: Bleier, Nathaniel;Mubarik, M. Husnain;Balaji, Suman;Rodriguez, Francisco;Sou, Antony;White, Scott;Kumar, Rakesh
• 通讯作者: Kumar, Rakesh