About this event
Please join the U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Engineering on January 18, 2024, from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern for a Distinguished Lecture by Dr. Kang Wang of the University of California, Los Angeles, on “Semiconductor Retrospectives, Perspectives, and Beyond.”
Join the Lecture: Register in advance for this virtual event: https://nsf.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_MprzZiObTHeaS-BwHj3fTA
Real-time captions will be available via Zoom. Submit other accessibility accommodation requests in advance to rarequest@nsf.gov.
Abstract: Semiconductors have amazingly changed our daily lives, enabling computing, the internet, mobile communications, advanced medical diagnostic equipment, and self-driven cars. In this lecture, Dr. Wang will outline the progress of transistor technology from the early 1900s to the present day through various stages of innovations and evolutions.
The co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, famously forecasted that the number of transistors that can be packed onto a semiconductor chip would double every two years. This prediction, called Moore’s Law, has been surprisingly accurate for the last six decades and has been achieved by simply scaling down the feature size to improve the performance and increase the density. However further progress is becoming difficult and more expensive to sustain as the industry approaches the limits of physical laws due to size and power limitations.
Dr. Wang will discuss the current challenges for further improving the functionality and performance of chips in the semiconductor manufacturing industry today. He will also describe computational architectures and systems approaches to alleviate said challenges, such as neuromorphic processors, computing-in-memory, and stochastic information processing. He will also contrast collective complexity and quantum computing. This talk will stimulate further discussions around research on viable alternative performance scaling methods to drive advances in semiconductor technology for the benefit of society.
Biography: Dr. Kang L. Wang is a Distinguished Professor and Raytheon Chair in Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He serves as co-director of the UCLA Center for Quantum Science and Engineering and co-director of the Center of Excellence for Green Nanotechnologies, a collaboration between UCLA and the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia. His research areas include semiconductors, topological matters, spintronics/magnetics, nonvolatile electronics, and quantum information and computing.
Dr. Wang received his B.S. degree from National Cheng Kung University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1972 to 1978, he worked at the General Electric Research and Development Center. Dr. Wang holds more than 40 patents and published over 800 papers. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Guggenheim Fellow, IEEE Fellow, IEEE Ebers Award, and Semiconductor Research Corporation Awards.
What's Next: This is the first of two Distinguished Lectures on semiconductors. Join us on February 13, 2024, at 11 a.m. to hear from Intel Fellow Dr. Ravi Mahajan on “How Advanced Packaging Will Shape the Semiconductor Industry.”