Keynote Talks

 

Paolo Ienne

Reconfigurable Computing for Software Programmers?

(Full Professor, Processor Architecture Laboratory, EPFL, Switzerland)

Bio: Paolo Ienne has been a Professor in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences at EPFL since 2000. His research interests include various aspects of computer and processor architecture, FPGAs and reconfigurable computing, electronic design automation, and computer arithmetic. He has published over 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences, some of which have received Best Paper Awards (three times at ISFPGA, three at FPL, at CASES, and at DAC). Ienne has served as General or Program chair of various conferences (including ASAP, ARITH, FPL, and ISFPGA) and is an Associate Editor of ACM Computing Surveys and ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization. He serves on the steering committee of the ARITH, FPL, and ISFPGA conferences.

 

Abstract: The acquisitions of Altera by Intel in 2015 and of Xilinx by AMD in 2022 seem to mark a new era for field-programmable gate-arrays, or FPGAs: from a reconfigurable device mostly dedicated to prototyping and moderate-volume embedded applications, they may now have a chance to become ubiquitous high-performance computing devices, alongside CPUs, GPUs, and TPUs. Yet, one of the fundamental conditions for the adoption of any new device in a computing environment is the availability of a suitable programming paradigm. Alas, enabling software developers to apply their skills to FPGAs has been a long and, as of yet, unreached research objective in reconfigurable computing. In this talk, we will first discuss our experiences with the daunting task of running efficiently kernels of software-oriented imperative code on FPGAs--a seemingly simple goal which has remained elusive for a long time. We will also touch on the necessity of developing software environments to support forms of explicit parallelism profitable to FPGAs. We will argue that without progress on these fronts, reconfigurable computing will remain a missed opportunity.

Johanna Sepúlveda

Quantum-secure Systems and Circuits

(Chief Engineer - R&T Leader for Quantum Secure Communications & Optical, Airbus Defence and Space - Intelligence, Germany)

Bio: Johanna Sepúlveda received her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering - Microelectronics by the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She was a Senior Researcher in the area of security and emerging technologies at the University of South Brittany (France), INRIA (France) and at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). Currently she holds a position as the Airbus Expert on Quantum-Secure Technologies, being Chief Engineer of different European quantum initiatives such as the European Quantum Communication Infrastructure (EuroQCI). Also she is a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of Quantum Technologies for the European Commission and leader of the Strategic Industry Roadmap at the Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC). She has more than 15 years of experience in R&T and R&D in the area of security, networked systems, HPC and quantum technologies.

Abstract: Quantum technology represents a paradigm shift. It promises to reshape current products and services, and to solve countless problems as well as to create new ones. The advent of quantum computers represents a threat for secure communications. In order to prepare for such an event, critical systems and circuits for quantum and quantum-secure capabilities are currently developed. Quantum-Key-Distribution (QKD) and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) promise to protect current and future systems against classical and quantum attacks. However, the efficient, safe and secure integration of such technologies is still a challenge. In this talk I will discuss the requirements of the current circuits and devices that comprise these critical infrastructures, the opportunities and challenges of the adoption of such quantum-secure solution, the European Chips Act and the future of this area.

Daniel Watzenig

Autonomous vehicles – the state-of-play, challenges, and opportunities

(Divisional Director, Automotive Electronics Department, Virtual Vehicle Research Center Graz, Austria)

Bio: Daniel Watzenig was born in Austria. He received his doctoral degree in electrical engineering from Graz University of Technology, Austria, in 2006. In 2009 he received the venia docendi for Electrical Measurement and Signal Processing. Since 2008 he is the Divisional Director of the Automotive Electronics Department at the Virtual Vehicle Research Center Graz. In 2017 he was appointed as a Full Professor of Autonomous Driving at the Institute of Automation and Control, Graz University of Technology, Austria. His research interests focus on the sense & control of automated vehicles, sensor fusion, and uncertainty estimation. He is the author or co-author of over 180 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, patents, and articles. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the SAE Int. Journal on Connected and Automated Vehicles (SAE JCAV, launched in 2018). Since 2019 he is invited guest lecturer at Stanford University, USA, teaching multi-sensor perception, data fusion, and software for autonomous systems (Principles of Robot Autonomy I). He is the founder of the Autonomous Racing Graz Team, one of currently six teams of the global Roborace race series.

Abstract: Autonomous, cooperative, and connected vehicles are seen as one of the pivotal technologies that considerably will shape our society and will influence future transportation modes and quality of life, altering the face of mobility as we experience it by today. Such vehicles need to continuously perceive their environment, continuously exchange data with the cloud, fuse information (from own sensors, other agents, and cloud data), predict and plan, anticipate the outcome of their actions and the actions of other agents, and learn from the resultant interaction. Autonomous vehicles require sophisticated software, a qualified software stack, reliable hardware, and high-performance processing capabilities to be able to solve highly complex sensing, decision making, and control problems in real-time in any situation and weather condition. This talk will highlight the current state-of-play, limitations and shortcomings, existing challenges, and opportunities in Europe but also on a global scale. Emerging trends in the context of autonomous vehicles such as neuromorphic computing, quantum sensors, federated learning, self-certification and homologation along with legal aspects will be discussed.