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.

虽然计算在当今的社会和经济中似乎无处不在，但许多重要领域仍然很少涉及。以价值超过 10 万亿美元的快速消费品 (FMCG) 市场为例。包装食品、饮料、盥洗用品、非处方药和其他消耗品等一次性消费品的销售很大程度上没有任何有助于识别和跟踪、质量监控、品牌认证或交互的嵌入式计算设备。快速消费品领域以及低端医疗保健（例如绷带和伤口敷料）、农业和环境等领域的计算渗透率不高的主要原因是当今基于硅的计算系统的成本限制。基于硅的系统的成本仍然远远高于这些领域的成本要求。例如，多种快速消费品的单品级标签必须具有与条形码相当的成本，而硅基系统无法满足这一要求，因为此类系统的制造、测试和组装成本较高。印刷电子技术已成为针对此类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。此类技术还可以生产出舒适且无毒的设备。这项工作的重点是使这种方法变得廉价、可靠和灵活。其成果可以确保制造经济的所有组成部分和部件都带有电子标签。学生将在建筑、电路和材料科学交叉领域的独特且新兴的跨学科领域接受培训。先前印刷有源电子器件的工作主要集中在制造简单的电路。先前的工作尚未探索印刷计算机系统（例如微处理器和加速器）的架构、设计或优化空间。这并不奇怪，因为这种探索需要流程设计套件 (PDK)，而这些套件最近才开始可用。综合和物理设计标准单元库是架构探索的先决条件。 该项目将为电解质门控 FET 和 CNT 薄膜晶体管印刷技术开发标准单元库，并通过制造测量进行校准。这些库（将公开以供更广泛的使用）对于印刷计算机系统的设计空间探索至关重要。研究人员将开发印刷计算机系统的不同微架构构建块并制作原型。待开发和原型化的构建模块包括用于印刷微处理器的指令和数据存储器、ALU等，以及用于印刷机器学习加速器的决策树和感知器。然后，这些构建块将与开发的标准单元库结合使用，以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理，以及最大限度地减少印刷硬件的面积和功率的优化。总体而言，这项研究将有助于硬件制造的民主化，使计算即使在一次性超低成本领域也变得无处不在。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。

项目成果

Printed Machine Learning Classifiers

印刷机器学习分类器

• DOI: 10.1109/micro50266.2020.00019
• 发表时间: 2020-10-01
• 期刊: 2020 53rd Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO)
• 作者: Muhammad Husnain Mubarik;Dennis D. Weller;Nathaniel Bleier;Matthew Tomei;J. Aghassi‐Hagmann;M. Tahoori;Rakesh Kumar
• 通讯作者: Rakesh Kumar

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: 2021-01
• 期刊: Design and Test in Europe (DATE
• 作者: Weller, Dennis;Bleier, Nathaniel;Hefenbrock, Michael;Aghassi;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: 2023-04
• 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