Thematic Session 31

THEMATIC SESSION #31

Alon Ascoli

Politecnico di Torino, Italy

• alon.ascoli@polito.it

Fernando Corinto

Politecnico di Torino, Italy

• fernando.corinto@polito.it

Ronald Tetzlaff

Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

• ronald.tetzlaff@tu-dresden.de

Ahmet Samil Demirkol

Technische Universität Dresden, Germany

• ahmet_samil.demirkol@tu-dresden.de

Memristor devices represent the key nanotechnologies to allow a sustainable progress in integrated circuit (IC) design despite shrinking CMOS transistors further will no longer be a viable option in the years to come.

Besides requiring a minuscule amount power to switch at high rates between different resistance states, and enabling the use of the third dimension, given that they are typically integrated across dense crossbar arrays lying above CMOS circuitry, memristors from the non-volatile class exhibit the attractive capability to combine a number of useful functionalities within miniaturized physical media. This enables the circuit implementation of innovative time- and energy-efficient data processing paradigms, including in-memory-sensing and in-memory-computing, which are not realizable in CMOS technology nowadays.

Furthermore, memristors from the volatile class may act as sources of local energy, upon suitable polarization, similarly as the sodium and potassium ion channels across neuronal axon membranes. This paves the way to the design of compact artificial neural networks, mimicking plausibly biological counterparts, as well as to the synthesis of revolutionary computing machines, such as spike-based computing cellular automata, operating according to similar principles as the human brain.

On the basis of these facts, including the memristor within the designer toolkit promises to foster significant advancement in IC design beyond the Moore era, enabling the development of smart multi-purpose technical systems capable to sense, store, and process data in the same physical location, which opens up novel extraordinary opportunities for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Edge Computing applications.

The topics of focus of this special session include but are not restricted to the ones listed below:

• Emerging bio-mimetic material concepts
• Device characterization and modeling
• Theory of memristors
• Innovative bio-inspired data sensing, storage and processing approaches
• Circuit and system design with disruptive bio-mimetic nanotechnologies
• Artificial Intelligence, Edge Computing and Neuromorphic Engineering applications

The proposed special session will host high-quality presentations from leading scientists operating in different areas of the multi-disciplinary field of memristors, including Material Science, Physics, Chemistry, Circuits and Systems (CAS) theory, Electronics, Computer Architecture, Neuroscience, and Neuromorphic Engineering. The aim of the session is in fact to bring together researchers from different academic backgrounds, allowing them to share knowledge, to exchange ideas, and to establish collaborations. It will be an extraordinary opportunity for early-stage scientists to learn about the latest research trends and the most promising directions in this field of research, which will definitely shape the future of AI-enabled electronics in the years to come.

In particular, the session is divided into two complementary parts. The first one is particularly centered on presenting the latest theoretical advancements in the field.

Alon Ascoli (Senior IEEE Member) received a Habilitation as Full (Associate) Professor in Elettrotecnica, i.e. Electrical Circuit Theory, from the Italian Ministry of Education in May 2023 (April 2017). He was conferred a Habilitation as Full Professor in Nonlinear Circuit Theory from Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany, in February 2022. Previously, he was conferred a Ph.D. Degree in Electronic Engineering from University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, in 2006. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications of Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy. He was affiliated with the Institute of Principles of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of Technische Universität Dresden from Dec. 2012 to Nov. 2023. He develops system-theoretic methods for the analysis and design of bio-inspired memristive circuits as well as for understanding complex phenomena in biological systems. He was the recipient of the Darlington Best Paper Award from the IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems in 2023. He was honored with Best Paper Awards from the International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications (IJCTA) in 2007, and from the International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST) in 2020 and in 2022. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Chua Memristor Center (CMC), and of the IEEE Nanoelectronics and Gigascale Systems (Nano-Giga) Technical Committee (TC) of the Circuits and Systems Society (CASS). He served as Chair of the IEEE CASS Cellular Nanoscale Networks and Array Computing TC, i.e. CNNAC TC (of the IEEE CASS Cellular Nanoscale Networks and Memristive Array Computing TC, i.e. CNN-MAC TC) from 2019 to 2021 (from 2021 to 2023).

Fernando Corinto (Senior IEEE Member) received the Masters' Degree in Electronic Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the Politecnico di Torino, in 2001 and 2005 respectively. He also received the European Doctorate from the Politecnico di Torino, in 2005. Prof. Corinto was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship in 2004.
He is currently Professor of Electrical Engineering with the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino. His research activities are mainly on nonlinear dynamical circuits and systems, complex/neural networks and memristor nanotechnology for optimization problems.
Prof. Corinto is co-author of 4 books, 10 book chapters and more than 180 international journal and conference papers. Since 2010, he is Senior Member of the IEEE. He is also Member of the IEEE CAS Technical Committees on “Cellular Nanoscale Networks and Array Computing” and “Nonlinear Circuits and Systems”. Prof. Corinto served as Vice-Chair of the IEEE North Italy CAS Chapter. Prof. Corinto has been Associated Editor of the IEEE Trans. on Circuits and Systems - I for 2014-2015. He is also in the Editorial Board and Review Editor of the International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications since January 2015. Prof. Corinto has been the Vice Chair of the COST Action “Memristors - Devices, Models, Circuits, Systems and Applications (MemoCiS)”. Prof. Corinto has been DRESDEN Senior Fellows at the Technische Universität Dresden in 2013 and 2017. Prof. Corinto is also August-Wilhelm Scheer visiting professor at Technische Universität München and member of the Institute for Advanced Study -Technische Universität München.

Ronald Tetzlaff (Senior IEEE Member) is a Full Professor of Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering at the Technische Universtität Dresden, Germany. From 1999 to 2003 Ronald Tetzlaff was Associate Editor of the IEEE, Transactions on Circuits and Systems: part I. He was “Distinguished Lecturer” of the IEEE CAS Society (2001 to 2002). He is a member of the scientific committee of different international conferences. He was the chair of the 7th IEEE International Workshop on Cellular Neural Networks and their Applications (CNNA 2002) and organized several special sessions at circuit and systems related conferences. From 2005 to 2007 he was the chair of the IEEE Technical Committee Cellular Neural Networks & Array Computing. Ronald Tetzlaff is a member of the Informationstechnische Gesellschaft (ITG) and the German Society of Electrical Engineers and of the German URSI Committee. Ronald Tetzlaff is in the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications since 2007 and he is also in the Editorial Board of the IEEE, Transactions on Circuits and Systems: part II since 2016. He was Associate Editor of the AEά – International Journal of Electronics and Communications from 2008 to 2016. Ronald Tetzlaff was the chair of the 18th IEEE Workshop on Nonlinear Dynamics of Electronic Systems (NDES 2010), the chair of the 5th International Workshop on Seizure Prediction (IWSP5 2012) , the chair of the 21st European Conference on Circuit Theory and Design (ECCTD 2013), the chair of the 5th Memristor and Memristive Symposium 2016, and of the 15th IEEE International Workshop on Cellular Nanoscale Networks and their Applications (CNNA 2016). Since 2014 her serves as the leader of working group 2 (Memristor Theory, Modelling and Simulation) in the EU COST action MemoCIS (IC 1401) on Memristors – Devices, Models, Circuits, Systems and Applications. Ronald Tetzlaff serves as a reviewer for several journals and for the European Commission.

Ahmet Samil Demirkol received his Ph.D. degree in Electronics Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Turkey in 2014. He is currently a research associate with the chair of Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering at TU Dresden, since 2019. Previously, he was the lead researcher in an industrial joint project at the same chair between 2015-2019, and a research fellow at University of Catania, Italy between 2014-2015. His current research interests cover modeling of memristors, analysis and design of memristive systems, Cellular Nonlinear Networks, and neuromorphic circuit design. Furthermore, he has a strong research experience in Circuit Theory, Harmonic Distortion Analysis using Volterra Series, Compact Device Modeling, Analog Circuit Design, Active Network Synthesis, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos.