IEDM 2020 Preview

Every December is the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM). The somewhat unusual name comes about since it has been going for over 60 years and, in the early days, it was all about vacuum tubes (valves in English English), with transistors relegated to a few papers at the end of the last day. For the last few years, it has been held in the San Francisco Hilton, but of course this year it will be virtual. The meeting takes place from December 12 to 16. But note that some material is available from the weekend before.

This year’s theme is Innovative Devices for a Better Future, which reflects the fact that, at a time of great global uncertainty, electronics technology is being used much more broadly than ever before to address the world’s most pressing challenges.

IEDM is the world’s preeminent forum for reporting technological breakthroughs in the areas of semiconductor and electronic device technology, design, manufacturing, physics, and modeling. IEDM is the flagship conference for nanometer-scale CMOS transistor technology, advanced memory, displays, sensors, MEMS devices, novel quantum and nano-scale devices and phenomenology, optoelectronics, devices for power and energy harvesting, high-speed devices, as well as process technology and device modeling and simulation.

Note that all times in this post are Pacific Standard Time.

Tutorials

Normally, the tutorials start after lunch on Saturday and run all afternoon. This year, they will be on-demand starting on Saturday, December 5. Note that this a week before the official start date for the conference. Live Q&A with the lecturers for Tutorials 1-3 will be on Saturday, December 12, 7:50am - 8:45am. Live Q&A with the lecturers for Tutorials 4-6 will be on Saturday, December 12, 9:00am - 9:45am.

Tutorial 1: Quantum Computing Technologies, Maud Vinet of Leti

Tutorial 2: Advanced Packaging Technologies for Heterogeneous Integration, Ravi Mahajan and Sairam Agraharam of Intel

Tutorial 3: Memory-Centric Computing Systems, Onur Mutlu of ETH Zurich

Tutorial 4: Imaging Devices and Systems for Future Society, Yusuke Oike of Sony Semiconductor Solutions

Tutorial 5: Innovative Technology Elements to Enable CMOS Scaling in 3nm and Beyond – Device Architectures, Parasitics and Materials, Myung-Hee Na of imec

Tutorial 6: STT and SOT MRAM Technologies and Its Applications from IoT to AI System, Tetsuo Endoh of Tohoku University

All the details, including speaker biographies and abstracts, are on the IEDM Tutorial Page.

Short Courses

Traditionally there are two short courses on Sunday, run in parallel, with one focused on logic (usually on the leading-edge process node), and one focused on memory. Again, the format is different this year and the short courses will be streamed starting the weekend before, on Sunday, December 6, with live Q&A on the Sunday of IEDM itself.

Short Course 1 – Live Question and Answer with Lecturers – Sunday, December 13, 7:50am – 9:30am (PST)

Short Course 2 – Live Question and Answer with Lecturers – Sunday, December 13, 9:35am – 11:45am (PST)

I find the short courses one of the most valuable things about attending IEDM, since it gives a snapshot of the leading edge of logic and memory technology at a level I can understand. Later in the week, during the IEDM conference itself, many of the papers are beyond me since I'm not a device physicist.

This year the logic course is titled Innovative Trends in Device Technology to Enable the Next Computing Revolution, (Organizer: Anne Vandooren, IMEC)

• Differentiated Silicon Technologies for Mobile Radio Front End – a Journey from Sub-6GHz to mmWave, Anirban Bandyopadhyay, Director, Strategic Applications, GLOBALFOUNDRIES
• Power Electronics for Next-Gen Computing: Topologies and Device Needs, Yogesh Ramadass, Texas Instruments
• Enablement of Next-Generation High-Performance NanoSheet Transistors, Nicolas Loubet, Advanced CMOS Logic Research, IBM Research
• Advanced 3D System Integration Technologies, KC Yee, TSMC
• 3D Sequential Integration: Opportunities, Breakthrough and Challenges, Claire Fenouillet-Beranger, LETI
• Integration Technology – From Package Level to Wafer Level Integration,  SE-Ho You, Samsung 

The memory course is titled Memory-Bound Computing, (Organizer, Ian Young , Intel)

• Compute Memory Trends: from Application Requirements to Architectural Needs,  Simon Hammond, Sandia National Laboratories
• Role of Persistent Memory in Computing for High-Performance Computing, Frank Hady, Intel
• HBM D-RAM and Beyond, Shekhar Borkar, Qualcomm 
• Memory for Secure Computing, Todd Austin, University of Michigan
• PUFs for Hardware Security, Sanu Mathew, Intel
• Alternate Technologies for SRAM, Helen Li, Duke University
• Analog Memory Needs for AI – Compute-in-Memory, Multi-Level Bit-Cell, Shimeng Yu, Georgia Tech 
• One-Shot Learning with Memory Augmented Neural Network, Michael Niemier, Notre Dame

All details of the short courses are on the IEDM Short Course Page.

Plenary Sessions

Normally, the week opens with a plenary session all morning on Monday morning. But this year, the plenary sessions open each day of the conference at 8:00am.

Plenary 1 – Monday, 8:00am: Future Logic Scaling: Towards Atomic Channels and Deconstructed Chips, S. B. Samavedam, imec

Plenary 2 – Tuesday, 8:00am: Memory Technology: Innovations Needed for Continued Technology Scaling and Enabling Advanced Computing Systems, Naga Chandrasekaran, Micron

Plenary 3 – Wednesday, 8:00am: Symbiosis of Semiconductors, AI and Quantum Computing, S.W. Hwang, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology

For more details, see the IEDM Plenary Session Page.

Panel Session: What Can Electronics Do to Help Solve Grand Societal Challenges?

Thursday, December 17, 7:30am  – 9:00am

Following a year of global upheaval and acute challenges, this panel discussion will reflect on the place of electronics and the semiconductor industry in the world. It will bring together experts from across science and technology to discuss future directions for microelectronics and explore the role technology can play in addressing grand societal challenges and creating a more sustainable and equitable future. It will also consider the challenges involved in attracting the best students and how electronics education needs to evolve in order to suit the needs of the future. For 2020, we have partnered with the journals Nature and Nature Electronics to bring you this unique panel discussion.

The panel has not yet been announced. When they are, the name should appear on the Panel Session Page.

Technical Sessions

The detailed program for the technical sessions is not up on the website yet.

Details and Registration

Everything is on the IEDM Website.

And here is the Registration Page. Note that early registration ends soon on November 20.

Video

Watch this year's IEDM 2020 publicity video (just under three minutes):

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