Shaheen

BES: Energy-Efficient Intelligent Computing with Emerging Microelectronics

Daniel Morton — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:47:10 +0000

BES: Energy-Efficient Intelligent Computing with Emerging Microelectronics Daniel Morton Thu, 04/09/2026 - 13:47

Event Details

Thursday April 9, 2026 | 3:00 - 4:00 PM

SEEC Sievers Room (S228)

Abstract:

The pursuit of high-performance, energy-efficient artificial intelligence (AI) opens exciting opportunities for emerging semiconductor memories and unconventional architectures. To maximize the potential of emerging computing technologies, innovations across the stack (from devices to architecture) become critical. In this talk, I will present our recent hardware-software co-design efforts in exploiting beyond-complementary-metal-oxide-silicon (CMOS) microelectronics for developing efficient deep neural network (DNN) hardware accelerators. We will investigate how to co-design the emerging microelectronics and crossbar architecture to address two major challenges of compute-in-memory: the analog functional errors and the peripheral overhead of analog-to-digital conversion. Furthermore, we will exploit the device physics of emerging non-volatile memory to enable stochastic and approximate computation, thereby achieving an optimal trade-off between efficiency and accuracy for AI inference. Our device-to-system co-optimization demonstrates exciting opportunities for beyond-CMOS microelectronics in developing the next-generation efficient compute systems for edge sensing and precision agriculture applications.

Biography:

Cheng Wang is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. Cheng received his B.S. degree in Physics from Peking University in 2009 and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 2016, with his dissertation on emerging non-volatile and spintronic memories. Prior to joining Iowa State, Cheng was a Research Scientist at the Center for Brain-inspired Computing Enabling (C-BRIC) at Purdue University. Cheng worked as a Staff R&D Engineer at Seagate Research Center from 2016 to 2019, where he designed high-density magneto-electronic memory and storage technologies. His current research interests include machine learning hardware acceleration and energy-efficient neuromorphic computing with emerging technologies and architectures. He has served on the Technical Program Committee for beyond-CMOS and emerging technologies for IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference (DAC), International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), and Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, Seagate FRC Technical Award, and Best Paper Awards for the IEEE International Conference on Rebooting Computing (ICRC) and IEEE Cross-disciplinary Conference on Memory-Centric Computing.

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BES: Atoms to Bits: Toward Thermodynamic Intelligence

Daniel Morton — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:26:24 +0000

BES: Atoms to Bits: Toward Thermodynamic Intelligence Daniel Morton Thu, 04/02/2026 - 13:26

Event Details

Thursday April 2, 2026

SEEC Building N224 | 3:00 - 4:00 PM

Abstract:

As transistors approach atomic limits, heat dissipation has become the defining constraint of modern computing. My research asks a different question: can heat itself be used to compute? Using correlated quantum materials such as vanadium dioxide (VO2), we explore how electronic phase transitions driven by the flow of heat and charge, generate nonlinear dynamics that resemble neural behavior.

I will discuss our recent experiments revealing spiking, synchronization, memory, and stochasticity in Mott oscillators, as well as collective switching in thermally coupled device networks. These studies uncover how local phase transition fluctuations and mesoscale heat transport give rise to emergent order and functional computation. By linking atomic-scale phase transitions to network-level information processing, this work outlines a physical pathway from atoms to bits, pointing toward a thermodynamic framework for intelligent, energy-aware electronics.

Biography:

Erbin Qiu is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Physics at the University of California, San Diego. He received his PhD in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UC San Diego. His research focuses on energy-efficient, brain-inspired computing, where he develops new electronic devices that use heat and physical dynamics, rather than conventional digital logic, to process information.

His work addresses a fundamental challenge in modern computing: how to advance artificial intelligence while reducing energy consumption and environmental impact. Dr. Qiu has led independent research spanning device design, nanoscale fabrication, and experimental characterization. He is the first and corresponding author of multiple publications in leading journals, including Advanced Materials, PNAS, and Applied Physics Letters. His research has been recognized with several competitive honors, including the Schultz Prize as the sole recipient in the past six years, the Dr. William S.C. Chang Best Dissertation Award (2024) from UC San Diego, and the Von Neumann Distinguished Collaborative Research Award from the U.S. Department of Energy.

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2025 BEaRS Workshop

Daniel Morton — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 22:38:29 +0000

2025 BEaRS Workshop Daniel Morton Mon, 07/21/2025 - 16:38

Daniel Morton

The 2025 BEaRS Workshop brought together researchers from across the front range (and beyond, with our guests from Japan) to participate in cross-cutting interdisciplinary discussion focused on energy and resilience.

This inaugural Boulder Energy and Resilient Sustainability (BEaRS) workshop brought together scientists from across a range of disciplines, from the social sciences to fundamental physics, from buildings and control to electronics and computing, all discussing how we can better use energy to develop a more resilient future.

The program for the three-day workshop was made up from seven session, with topics including sustainability and the built environment, active matter and chiral materials, building energy technologies, energy systems and the economics of renewable integration, energy policy, grid optimization and energy efficient computing. We welcomed guests from across the Front Range, from Golden to Fort Collins, and further afield, with collaborators from the WPI-SKCM2, based at Hiroshima University.

The program was designed to include a range of speakers, from invited plenary speakers to student researchers, the aim was to provide opportunities for connection and discussion and to seed cross-disciplinary ideas. The plenary speakers really set the tone for each of the days, striking notes of optimism and encouragement, while also instilling urgency and impatience for change.

Amory Lovins, a co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, joined us from Stanford to present on how integrative design can be used to enhance efficiencies and drive down costs in buildings, everything from the house Amory lives in, to factories for Intel. Using this design principles for today’s technologies can have significant lasting impact in reducing energy use. We have the technology, and we know how to design for it.

Chuck Kutscher, who has spent decades at the cutting-edge of renewable energy research at NREL and now as a RASEI Fellow, gave an overview talk on the clean energy transition with a focus on air pollution and human health. Chuck highlighted all the ways in which we can drive down air pollution as we move to cleaner energy and the impacts, both on human health and societal economics that these changes would make. Central to this change is the drive toward electrification, it will provide cheaper electricity that will significantly reduce the impact on human health.

Ian Lange, an economist from the Colorado School of Mines, an expert in global mineral policy, gave an insightful overview of the status of the global mineral market and provided perspectives on how to think about and understand this industry. The knowledge imparted, both on how to think about the minerals in the soil, and some of the factors that are real drivers in this discussion provided a great way to better understand this important market for technology.

Daniel Morton — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 19:09:13 +0000

2024 Earthshot Prize for Fix Our Climate Daniel Morton Wed, 11/06/2024 - 12:09

Daniel Morton

Find out more about the award

Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems

ATS Award Press Release

The Earthshot Prize

ATS Award Information

RASEI Graduate Jake Perez (Shaheen Group) and Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems Team Win 2024 Earthshot Prize to Transform Our Planet

Pioneering Energy Solution Converts Industrial waste Heat into Clean Electricity, Revolutionizing Global Energy Use

The Earthshot Prize, inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” challenge in 1962 to land a man on the moon, was launched by Prince William in 2020 to search for, and scale, the most innovative solutions to the world’s greatest environmental needs. The aim is to unleash the urgent optimism required to accelerate and scale the environmental innovations that will repair and regenerate our planet. In 2024 there were over 5,000 nominations across five categories. One of the 20 winners was the Advanced Thermovoltaic Systems (ATS) team, including Jake Perez, a RASEI alum.

The ATS team was awarded the distinguished 2024 Earthshot “Fix Our Climate” prize for their transformative efforts against climate change. Chosen from 5,342 nominations across 141countries, this prestigious award was recently celebrated at the Earthshot Prize ceremony in Cape Town, that brought together global stakeholders in the fight to save the climate, including Prince William and Sir David Attenborough.

Waste heat is everywhere. Globally, of the energy used to power the industries that the world needs, such as cement and steel, approximately 60% is simply lost as waste. This wasted heat is the equivalent of the energy used by 4 billion homes, twice the number of homes that are on the planet. It is a huge economic and environmental cost. ATS’s revolutionary technology has the potential to redefine the energy sector by tackling the colossal challenge of industrial waste heat, by changing perspectives and considering this ‘waste heat’ as an untapped resource.