About half a century ago, theoretical physicists exploring the thermodynamics of computation suggested that energy-recycling computers have the potential to operate with higher energy efficiency than conventional computer designs. Up until recently, however, this theoretical potential had remained largely unrealized in practice. In this talk, I will give a brief overview of previous research in energy-recycling computing. I will then highlight the work of my research group in this area. Through the successful demonstration of GHz-speed silicon prototypes, this work has led to the first-ever deployment of energy-recycling for energy-efficient operation in a high-volume commercial microprocessor, AMD’s 4GHz “Piledriver” processor core.
Energy-Recycling Computers
Marios
Papaefthymiou
Speaker’s Biography
Marios Papaefthymiou is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Chair of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. He is also Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Cyclos Semiconductor, a pioneer in design technologies for energy-efficient processors. His research interests are in energy-efficient computing.
In addition to a number of best paper awards, his work has resulted in practical energy-saving technologies that are currently deployed in millions of chips for high-end laptops and servers. An IEEE Fellow, Papaefthymiou has received faculty recognition awards from Yale College and the Graduate School at Michigan, an ARO Young Investigator Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and IBM Partnership Awards. He holds a BS degree from Caltech, and SM and PhD degrees from MIT.
University of Michigan
Former Ph.D. Student