General information
Organisation
The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is a key player in research, development and innovation in four main areas :
• defence and security,
• nuclear energy (fission and fusion),
• technological research for industry,
• fundamental research in the physical sciences and life sciences.
Drawing on its widely acknowledged expertise, and thanks to its 16000 technicians, engineers, researchers and staff, the CEA actively participates in collaborative projects with a large number of academic and industrial partners.
The CEA is established in ten centers spread throughout France
Reference
SL-DRT-24-0758
Direction
DRT
Thesis topic details
Category
Technological challenges
Thesis topics
In-physics artificial intelligence using emerging nanodevices
Contract
Thèse
Job description
Recent breakthroughs in models of AI are correlated with the energy burden required to define and run these models. GPUs are the goto hardware for these implementations, since they can perform configurable, highly parallelised and matrix multiplications using digital circuits. To go beyond the energy limits of GPUs however, it may be required to abandon the digital computing paradigm altogether.
A particularly elegant solution may be to exploit the intrinsic physics of electron devices in an analogue fashion. For example, early work has already proposed how physical entropy of silicon devices can realise probabilistic learning algorithms, how voltage relaxation in resistive networks may approximate gradients, and how the activity of interconnected oscillators may converge minima on energy surfaces.
The objective of this thesis will be to study existing, and propose new, in-physics computing primitives. Furthermore, like GPUs bias current AI to rely on matrix multiplications, the candidate must also consider how these new primitives will impact future AI algorithms. Particular attention will be given to emerging nanodevice technologies under development at CEA Grenoble. Depending on the interests of the PhD student, it may be possible to design, tape-out and test circuit concepts leveraging these in-house innovative technologies.
University / doctoral school
Electronique, Electrotechnique, Automatique, Traitement du Signal (EEATS)
Université Grenoble Alpes
Thesis topic location
Site
Grenoble
Requester
Position start date
01/09/2024
Person to be contacted by the applicant
DALGATY Thomas thomas.dalgaty@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/DSCIN/DSCIN/LIIM
CEA, 17 rue des Martyrs,
38054 GRENOBLE Cedex 9
0438785510
Tutor / Responsible thesis director
VIANELLO Elisa elisa.vianello@cea.fr
CEA
DRT/DCOS//LDMC
CEA Leti MINATEC Campus
Laboratoire de Technologies Memoires Avancées
17, rue des Martyrs
38054 Grenoble CEDEX9
0438789092
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