Wenliang Chen ‘92 PhD (applied physics), Chief Technology Officer at AP Memory, will join us as the next Dean’s Invited Speaker hosted by Dean Jeffrey Brock ‘92.
Challenges and Opportunities in AI High Performance Computing (HPC)
While AI HPC has pushed the entire semiconductor industry to the forefront of international politics, two fundamental challenges remain: memory bandwidth (or information bandwidth) and power delivery (or energy bandwidth). AI computing, by its model-based nature, is memory bandwidth limited. Memory bandwidth is rooted in hardware architecture. Current mainstream hardware architecture is approaching its memory bandwidth ceiling. In the meantime, delivering thousands of watts at sub-1-volt voltage means sending thousands of amperes without dropping even 0.1 volt. This power delivery challenge is also putting a ceiling on computing performance.
Wen will discuss potential solutions in 3D structures, and touch on the potential implications to the semiconductor industry and related government policies as a whole.