Emerging Opportunities and Challenges of Non-Volatile Memory – From Storage to AI-Oriented Computing

Tei-Wei Kuo - City University of Hong Kong

Oct. 8, 2021, 10 a.m. - Oct. 8, 2021, 11 a.m.

Zoom (see link below)

Hosted by: Xue (Steve) Liu


Abstract: As flash memory is widely adopted as a storage medium for storage devices, various types of non-volatile memory are now explored for different system designs. Opportunities in system design breakthroughs have now been emerging over the horizon.  In this talk, I should first address problems faced in system designs because of the imperfection of flash memory and their solutions. In particular, I will present methodologies in reducing read retries and storing data over high-density 3D flash memory due to the high bit error rates. I will also talk about how to utilize the characteristics of flash memory to do things that some common storage devices, such as a hard drive, can not do before, such as smart chip programming. Besides the optimization methodologies for devices, I will address the opportunities offered by non-volatile memory in resolving of I/O bottleneck by reducing data movements between the main memory and the storage. I will then present some solutions in neuromorphic computing in utilizing the special characteristics of non-volatile memory in deep learning.

Speaker bio: Prof. Kuo received his B.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from National Taiwan University and the University of Texas at Austin in 1986 and 1994, respectively. He is Lee Shau Kee Chair Professor of Information Engineering, Advisor to President (Information Technology), and Dean of College of Engineering, City University of Hong Kong. From 2019, he takes a temporary transfer to join City University of Hong Kong from National Taiwan University, where he was an Interim President (2017-2019) and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs (2016-2019). His research interest includes embedded systems, non-volatile-memory software designs, neuromorphic computing, and real-time systems.

Dr. Kuo is a fellow of ACM, IEEE, and the US National Academy of Inventors. He is an executive committee member of IEEE Technical Committee on Real-Time Systems (TC-RTS) and IEEE Technical Committee on Cyber-Physical Systems  (TC-CPS) and the Vice Chair of ACM SIGAPP. Prof. Kuo received numerous awards and recognitions, including Humboldt Research Award in 2021, Outstanding Technical Achievement and Leadership Award from IEEE TC-RTS, and Distinguished Leadership Award from IEEE TC-CPS both in 2017. Prof. Kuo is the founding Editor-in-Chief of ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems (2015-2021) and a program committee member of many prestigious conferences. He has over 300 technical papers published in international journals and conferences and received many best paper awards, including Best Paper Awards from ACM/IEEE CODES+ISSS 2019 and ACM HotStorage 2021.

Zoom link: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/84280715850 (zoom login required)

Reception after the talk in gather town: https://gather.town/app/tYHHMh7tPcPw9037/reception