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Professors Eby Friedman and Engin Ipek are co-PIs on a project to leverage superconducting electronics to design the next generation of high performance, energy efficient datacenters. The project, funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (iARPA), is a joint effort with Raytheon BBN technologies, Hypres Inc., New York University, Cornell, and MIT.  The project will explore a novel memory solution as part of the iARPA’s Cryogenic Computing Complexity program.

“As part of the first phase of the project, the University of Rochester will receive $845,000 over 39 months to lead the architecture and large-scale circuit design efforts,” Ipek said.

iARPA invests in “high-risk/high-payoff research programs that have the potential to provide our nation with an overwhelming intelligence advantage over future adversaries,” according to the iARPA website. The Cryogenic Computing Complexity program seeks alternatives to conventional computing systems, which “appear to have no path to be able to increase energy efficiency fast enough to keep up with increasing demands for computation.” 

The Ipek-Friedman collaboration envisions a “Spin-Transfer, Energy-Efficient 64-bit Memory (STEM-64) as a new memory solution for a cryogenic heterogeneous system architecture that will target clock rates of 10 GHz with 1013 bit-ops/s and 1015 bit-ops/J.” “Achieving this performance with a small, scalable system will create a path toward large-scale production for datacenter applications and exascale high-performance computing systems that direly need energy efficiency without sacrificing performance,” Ipek noted.

Friedman is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Ipek is an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and of Computer Science