Institute – link
IBM Research – Zurich is world-renowned for its outstanding scientific achievements, most notably the Nobel Prizes in Physics in 1986 and 1987 for the invention of the scanning tunnelling microscope and the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity, respectively.
Other key innovations include trellis-coded modulation, which revolutionized data transmission over telephone lines; the Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) and Noise Predictive Maximum Likelihood (NPRML) technologies for hard-disk and tape drive systems; the Token Ring, which became a standard for local-area networks and a highly successful IBM product; the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) standard used for highly secure payments; and Smartcard JavaCard™ technology.
IBM Research – Zurich is dedicated not only to fundamental research, but also to exploring and creating innovative industry- and customer-oriented solutions based on several key areas, including future chip technology; nanotechnology; supercomputing; security and privacy; risk and compliance as well as cognitive computing.
At IBM, there is significant know-how in technological aspects such as phase change memory technology and silicon photonics. There is also a significant research activity in application areas such as internet of things (IoT), edge computing and cognitive computing.
People – link
Dr. Abu Sebastian from IBM will serve as the work package leader for WP4. He is a research staff member at IBM since 2006. He was a key contributor to several key projects in the space of storage and memory technologies. Scanning-probe-based data storage, phase-change memory and carbon-based memory are three key projects to which he made significant contributions. Most recently, he is actively researching the area of non-von Neumann computing with the intent of connecting the technological elements with applications such as cognitive computing. He has published over 60 journal papers/book chapters and over 70 articles in conference proceedings. He also hold over 30 granted patents. His articles have been cited 3248 times, with an h-index of 31 and an i10-index of 71 (source: Google Scholar). Dr. Sebastian is a co-recipient of the 2009 IEEE Control Systems Technology Award. In 2013 he received the IFAC Mechatronic Systems Young Researcher Award for his contributions to the field of mico-/nanoscale mechatronic systems. In 2015 he was awarded the European Research Council (ERC) consolidator grant. In 2016 he was elected an IBM Master Inventor.
Dr Sebastian will be assisted on the Fun-COMP project by Irem Boybat Kara and Manuel Le Gallo.
Irem Boybat Kara is a PhD student at IBM and is co-supervised by Dr. Abu Sebastian (IBM Research – Zurich) and Prof. Yusuf Leblebici (EPFL). She earned her Master’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (MSc) from EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland and her Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering (BSc) from Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her focus is on developing novel non-von Neumann architectures and algorithms with non-volatile memory devices.
Manuel Le Gallo is a senior PhD student co-supervised by Abu Sebastian at IBM and Prof. Tobias Delbruck at the Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI) of ETH Zurich. His PhD work focuses on characterization and modelling of phase-change memory (PCM) devices and applications to non-von-Neumann computing. He has published 6 journal papers and presented his work at 5 international conferences during the course of his PhD. He originally joined IBM Research – Zurich as a Master’s student in 2013, working on the electrical characterization of PCM cells and the experimental investigation of melting/crystallization and subthreshold conduction. Before joining IBM, Manuel interned in the BiMOS R&D division of ABB Semiconductors in Lenzburg, Switzerland, where he worked on power semiconductor devices. Manuel holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology Master (MSc) from ETH Zurich, an undergraduate degree of Cycle Ingénieur Polytechnicien from Ecole Polytechnique (l’X), Palaiseau, France, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics (BEng) from Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada
