IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Fall 2021 - 155

CONFERENCE REPORTS
2021 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits
VLSI Systems for Lifestyle Transformation
W
When the Tokyo Olympics were successfully
held this year, the 2021
Symposia on Very Large-Scale Integration
(VLSI) Technology and Circuits
delivered a unique perspective built
around the theme of " VLSI Systems for
Lifestyle Transformation. " This conference
provided a program in both
technology and circuits, packed with
technical presentations, plenary talks,
panels, short courses, forums, and
workshops. While flexibly responding
to changes in lifestyle with COVID-19,
the conference provided opportunities
to deepen the discussion between
participants and presenters in a fully
virtual format.
As part of the Symposia's close
integration of technology and circuits,
a series of joint focus sessions
presented contributed papers from
the technology and circuits programs.
These focus sessions covered topics
such as " Compute-In-Memory, " " Image
Sensors, " " Circuit and Technology for
Quantum Computing, " " Advanced
Heterogeneous and 3D Integration, " and
" Photonics Interconnect and Compute. "
In addition to the joint focus sessions,
there was a circuit focus session highlighting
recent advances in " EnergyEfficient
Machine Learning Processors "
and two technology focus sessions on
" New Processes and Materials for Future
Logic Devices " and " Advanced Memory
Technology. " The VLSI Symposia delivered
the opportunity to discuss a variety
of these new technologies and their
synergistic effects.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2021.3110150
Date of current version: 17 November 2021
Trends and Future Prospects
of Computing
In the plenary session at the VLSI Symposia,
Satoshi Matsuoka (Riken) revealed
the architecture and design methodology
of the supercomputer " Fugaku "
as well as the societal results in
COVID-19 applications in his presentation
" Fugaku and A64FX: The
First Exascale Supercomputer and
Its Innovative Arm CPU " (Figure 1).
Fugaku uses 158,974 A64FX CPUs
in a single-socked node configuration,
making it the largest and fastest
supercomputer ever created. Matsuoka
pointed out that the key was the
so-called " disaggregated architecture "
that allowed separation and
arbitrary combination of CPU cores,
memory, and network functions, and
was designed with advanced application
codesign approach, in addition
to 7-nm process technology and onpackage
integrated high bandwidth
memory. Matsuoka also introduced
the results of research using Fugaku
on the situation of COVID-19 and,
finally, painted his vision for the
next 20 years of supercomputing, a
" Cambrian " heterogeneous system
architecture supported by novel de -
vices. Another plenary speaker, Mark
Papermaster [Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD)], noted that the entire industry
faced challenges, including
the slowing of Moore's Law, severe
power, energy constraints, an alwaysconnected
society, and disruptions
from the ongoing artificial intelligence
revolution (Figure 2). Papermaster
proposed " Tailored Computing " to
continue to deliver more powerful
computing solutions for these difficulties
and presented his prospect that
the need and opportunity to tailor
technologies in all aspects of future
computing will drive the industry into
heterogeneity in everything.
New Generation Chip Makers
Versus the Incumbents
FIGURE 1: Dr. Satoshi Matsuoka, Director,
Riken Center for Computer Science presents
" Fugaku and A64FX: The First Exascale Supercomputer
and its Innovative Arm CPU. "
The live circuit panel, " New Generation
Chip Makers Versus the Incumbents "
(Figure 3) took place in the
afternoon in America, at midnight in
Europe, and in the morning in Asia.
Although the panelists and audience
were far away from each other, the
discussion moderated by Naveen
Varma (Princeton University) was exciting
and encouraging as usual.
After inviting attendees to " relaxing
beverage " on their hands, Naveen
started the session with his own episode
that one of his excellent Ph.D.
graduates is interviewing with Google,
Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (GAFA),
not the giants in the silicon industry.
The story was a good starter for the
panel discussion.
Panelists were lined up from AMD,
Google, Preferred Networks, Qualcomm,
IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE
FALL 2021
155
IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Fall 2021

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