Professors Tsividis, Seok, Sethumadhavan, and collaborators at UT Austin Win $1.1M NSF Grant for Cyber-Physical Systems Research

September 12, 2012

Professors Yannis Tsividis (PI), Mingoo Seok (co-PI) and Simha Sethumadhavan (co-PI, CS), and their collaborators in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, have been awarded a three year, $1.1M NSF grant under the agency’s Cyber-Physical Systems program, for research in Hybrid Continuous-Discrete Computers for Cyber-Physical Systems.

The research augments the today-ubiquitous discrete (digital) model of computation with continuous (analog) computing, which is well-suited to the continuous natural variables involved in cyber-physical systems, and to the error-tolerant nature of computation in such systems. The result is a computing platform on a single silicon chip, with higher energy efficiency, higher speed, and better numerical convergence than is possible with purely discrete computation. The research has implications in hardware, architecture, and microarchitecture applications.