Date	October 20, 2016
Speaker	Subhasish Mitra Stanford University
Title	Robust Systems: From Today to the N3XT 1,000X
Abstract	Today's mainstream electronic systems typically assume that transistors and interconnects operate correctly over their useful lifetime. With enormous complexity and significantly increased vulnerability to failures compared to the past, future system designs cannot rely on such assumptions. At the same time, there is explosive growth in our dependency on such systems. Robust system design is essential to ensure that future systems perform correctly despite rising complexity and increasing disturbances. For coming generations of silicon technologies, several causes of hardware failures, largely benign in the past, are becoming significant at the system-level. Furthermore, emerging nanotechnologies such as carbon nanotubes are inherently highly subject to imperfections. Such Nano-Engineered Computing Systems Technologies (N3XT) are key to building transformative nanosystems since future computing demands far exceed the capabilities of today's electronics. This talk will address the following major robust system design goals: New approaches to thorough test and validation that scale with tremendous growth in complexity. Cost-effective tolerance and prediction of failures in hardware during system operation. A practical way to build nanosystems that can overcome substantial inherent imperfections in emerging nanotechnologies and deliver three orders of magnitude energy efficiency improvements for future data-intensive applications. Significant recent progress in robust system design impacts almost every aspect of future systems, from ultra-large-scale networked systems all the way to their nanoscale components.
Bio	Professor Subhasish Mitra directs the Robust Systems Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Department of Computer Science of Stanford University, where he is the Chambers Faculty Scholar of Engineering. Before joining Stanford, he was a Principal Engineer at Intel. Prof. Mitra's research interests include robust systems, VLSI design, CAD, validation and test, nanosystems, and neurosciences. His X-Compact technique for test compression has been key to cost-effective manufacturing and high-quality testing of a vast majority of electronic systems, including numerous Intel products. X-Compact and its derivatives have been implemented in widely-used commercial Electronic Design Automation tools. He, jointly with his students and collaborators, demonstrated the first carbon nanotube computer, and it was featured on the cover of NATURE. The US NSF presented this work as a Research Highlight to the US Congress, and it also was highlighted as "an important, scientific breakthrough" by the BBC, Economist, EE Times, IEEE Spectrum, MIT Technology Review, National Public Radio, New York Times, Scientific American, Time, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and numerous others worldwide. Prof. Mitra's honors include the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the White House, the highest US honor for early-career outstanding scientists and engineers, the ACM SIGDA/IEEE CEDA A. Richard Newton Technical Impact Award in Electronic Design Automation, "a test of time honor" for an outstanding technical contribution, the Semiconductor Research Corporation's Technical Excellence Award, and the Intel Achievement Award, Intel's highest corporate honor. He and his students published several award-winning papers at major venues: IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference, IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, IEEE International Test Conference, IEEE Transactions on CAD, IEEE VLSI Test Symposium, Intel Design and Test Technology Conference, and the Symposium on VLSI Technology. At Stanford, he has been honored several times by graduating seniors "for being important to them during their time at Stanford." Prof. Mitra has served on numerous conference committees and journal editorial boards. He served on DARPA's Information Science and Technology Board as an invited member. He is a Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE.
Resources