Dr. Niemier Receives IBM Faculty Award

4/14/2009:

Assistant Professor Michael Niemier has received a $30,000 IBM Faculty Award to study how emerging devices will perform when used to form more complex circuits and systems. Numerous research efforts are looking for a new logic device to either replace or augment CMOS technology to continue the performance scaling trends that we have seen for the last 40 years. The best way to determine how a new device might help in this regard is by comparisons at the functional unit/application level. This allows for "apples-to-apples" comparisons independent of any new device's particular strengths and weaknesses. This vein of research will not only allow industry to determine what new devices allow for performance improvements beyond end-of-the-roadmap CMOS, but will also begin to create a specific device-to-application mapping. Niemier will consider how nano-scale magnets (MQCA) and tunnel FETs (TFETs) might help in this regard. Specific attention will be given to how each technology may be used as a hardware accelerator.