Joint IACM & IESL Colloquium
Speaker:
Giovanni Finnochio,
University, Of Messina, Italy
Title:
High performance spintronic devices for microwave technology and computing
Abstract:
In this talk, I will present recent advances achieved in the development of spintronic microwave detectors, oscillators and amplifiers based on magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). I will review the main applications of those devices for computing including the realization of Ising machines based on probabilistic computing. The spintronic technology takes advantage of the manipulation of the electron spin together with its charge. This technology potentially combines important characteristics such as ultralow power needs, compactness (nanoscale size) and it is CMOS-compatible. I will show the applications of spintronic diodes based on MTJs for RF detectors, amplifiers and neuromorphic computing.
The second part of the talk will focus on probabilistic computing based on probabilistic bits (p-bits), units which are in the middle between standard bit and q-bits. The idea of probabilistic computing is old as the one of quantum computers, however in the last years several breakthroughs have shown the potential use of this paradigm to face combinatorial optimization problems and to enforce applications in machine learning.
Concerning the first point, the main idea is to create a probabilistic Ising machine able to find the ground state of Ising Hamiltonian. In detail, I will show how to map hard combinatorial optimization problems (Max-Sat, Max-Cut, etc) into probabilistic Ising machine and how to implement those in spintronic technology where a p-bit can be obtained by an MTJ and few transistors.
This work was supported under the project number 101070287 —SWAN-on-chip — HORIZON-CL4- 2021-DIGITAL-EMERGING-01, the project PRIN 2020LWPKH7 funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research., and by the PETASPIN association (www.petaspin.com).
Short Bio:
Giovanni Finocchio received the Ph.D. degree in advanced technologies in optoelectronic, photonic and micromagnetic modeling from the University of
Messina, Italy, in 2005. Since 2010, he has been an Assistant Professor first and Associate professor now with the Department of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Physical Sciences and Earth Sciences at the University of Messina. He is director of the laboratory PETASPIN (Petascale computing and Spintronics) at Messina. His research interests include spintronics, skyrmions, and computing (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=eKDbn-oAAAAJ&hl=en). In the last 10 years, he served on many technical program committees of international conferences and organized more than 10 international conferences and workshops as Chair, Program Committee Member, or in other positions. He is regularly invited at conferences in Magnetism and Spintronics. He is also president of Petaspin association (www.petaspin.com), AdCOM member of the IEEE Magnetics society, chair of the TC-16 on Quantum, neuromorphic and unconventional computing of the IEEE Nanotechnology council and past-chair of the IEEE Magnetics Italy chapter (2019-2022). Since 2022, he is also associate editor of Physical Review Applied (APS).
Time, Date & Location:
12:00 pm, Thursday, July 27th, 2023, Orfanoudakis Seminar Room
Host:
Stavros Komineas