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Email: ase[AT]zurich[dot]ibm[dot]com
SHORT BIOGRAPHY:
Abu Sebastian is a distinguished scientist and manager at IBM Research - Zurich in Rüschlikon, Switzerland. He was born in Kerala, India. He received a B. E. (Hons.) degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS Pilani, India and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering (minor in Mathematics) from Iowa State University. Dr. Sebastian is the author/co-author of over 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals/conference proceedings and holds over 80 US patents. He is a co-recipient of the 2009 IEEE Control Systems Technology Award and the 2009 IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award. In 2013 he received the IFAC Mechatronic Systems Young Researcher Award for his contributions to the field of mico-/nanoscale mechatronic systems. In 2015 he was awarded the European Research Council (ERC) consolidator grant and in 2020, he was awarded an ERC Proof-of-concept grant. He is an IBM Master Inventor since 2016. He was named Principal and Distinguished Research Staff Member in 2018 and 2020, respectively. In 2019 he received the Ovshinsky Lectureship Award for his contributions to 'Phase-change materials for cognitive computing'. In 2023, he received the Prof. L. K. Maheshwari Foundation Distinguished Alumnus Award from BITS Pilani, India. In 2023, he was also conferred the title of Visiting Professor in Materials by University of Oxford. He has served on the technical program committees of several conferences including IEDM, AICAS, NVMTS and E\PCOS and has served as an editor/guest editor for Mechatronics, APL Material, Applied Physics Letters, and IEEE Design and Test. He is a Distinguished Lecturer and Fellow of the IEEE.
SELECTED EXTERNALLY FUNDED PROJECTS:
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
Google Scholar
BOOK:
IN-MEMORY COMPUTING:
- C. Lammie et al., 'The inherent adversarial robustness of analog in-memory computing', 2024
- J. Buechel et al., 'Kernel Approximation using Analog In-Memory Computing', 2024
- M. Le Gallo et al., 'Demonstration of 4-quadrant analog in-memory matrix multiplication in a single modulation', NPJ Unconventional Computing, 2024
- M. Le Gallo et al., 'A 64-core mixed-signal in-memory compute chip based on phase-change memory for deep neural network inference', Nature Electronics, 2023
- J. Klein et al., 'ALPINE: Analog In-Memory Acceleration with Tight Processor Integration for Deep Learning, IEEE Trans. Computers, 2022
- G. Karunaratne et al., 'In-memory realization of in-situ few-shot continual learning with a dynamically evolving explicit memory', ESSDERC, 2022
- R. Khaddam-Aljameh et al., 'HERMES core: A 1.59TOPS/mm2 PCM on 14nm CMOS in-memory compute core using 300ps/LSB linearized CCO-based ADCs', IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 2022
- J. Feldmann, N. Youngblood, M. Karpov, H. Gehring, M. Stappers, M. Le Gallo, X. Fu, A. Lukashchuk, A. S. Raja, J. Liu, C. D. Wright, A. Sebastian*, T. J. Kippenberg*, W. H. P. Pernice*, H. Bhaskaran*, 'Parallel convolution processing using an integrated photonic tensor core', Nature, 2021
- A. Sebastian*, M. Le Gallo, R. Khaddam-Aljameh, E. Eleftheriou, 'Memory devices and applications for in-memory computing', Nature Nanotechnology, 2020
- V. Joshi, M. Le Gallo*, S. Haefeli, I. Boybat, S. R. Nandakumar, C. Piveteau, M. Dazzi, B. Rajendran, A. Sebastian*, E. Eleftheriou, 'Accurate deep neural network inference using computational phase-change memory', Nature Communications, 2020
- C. Rios, N. Youngblood, Z. Cheng, M. Le Gallo, W. H. P. Pernice, C. D. Wright, A. Sebastian*, H. Bhaskaran*, 'In-memory computing on a photonic platform', Science Advances, 2019
- I. Giannopoulos*, A. Sebastian*, M. Le Gallo, V. P. Jonnalagadda, M. Sousa, M. N. Boon, E. Eleftheriou, '8-bit precision in-memory multiplication with projected phase-change memory', Proc. IEDM, 2018 (Highlight paper)
- Le Gallo*, A. Sebastian*, R. Mathis, M. Manica, H. Giefers, T. Tuma, C. Bekas, A. Curioni, E. Eleftheriou, “Mixed-precision in-memory computing”, Nature Electronics, 2018
- Sebastian*, T. Tuma, N. Papandreou, M. Le Gallo, L. Kull, T. Parnell, E. Eleftheriou, “Temporal correlation detection using computational phase-change memory”, Nature Communications, 2017
- Hosseini, A. Sebastian, N. Papandreou, C. D. Wright, H. Bhaskaran, “Accumulation-based computing using phase change memories with FET access devices”, IEEE Electron Device Letters, 2015
NEURO-VECTOR SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURES:
- G. Camposampiero et al., "Towards learning abductive reasoning using vsa distributed representations", International Conference on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning, 2024
- N. Menet et al., "MIMONETS: Multiple-input-multiple-output neural networks exploiting computation in superposition", NeurIPS, 2023
- J. Langenegger, G. Karunaratne, M. Hersche, L. Benini, A. Sebastian*, A. Rahimi*, "In-memory factorization of holographic perceptual representations", Nature Nanotechnology, 2023
- M. Hersche, M. Zeqiri, L. Benini, A. Sebastian*, A. Rahimi*, "A neuro-vector-symbolic architecture for solving Raven’s progressive matrices", Nature Machine Intelligence, 2023
- M. Hersche, G. Karunaratne, G. Cherubini, L. Benini, A. Sebastian*, A. Rahimi*, "Constrained few-shot class-incremental learning", Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2022
- G. Karunaratne, M. Schmuck, M. Le Gallo, G. Cherubini, L. Benini, A. Sebastian*, A. Rahimi*, 'Robust high-dimensional memory-augmented neural networks', Nature Communications, 12, 2468, 2021
- G. Karunaratne, M. Le Gallo, G. Cherubini, L. Benini, A. Rahimi*, A. Sebastian*, 'In-memory hyperdimensional computing', Nature Electronics, 2020
NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING:
- S. Ghazi Sarwat*, B. Kersting, T. Moraitis, V. P. Jonnalagadda, A. Sebastian*, "Phase-change memtransistive synapses for mixed-plasticity neural computations", Nature Nanotechnology, 2022
- B. Rajendran, A. Sebastian, M. Schmuker, N. Srinivasa, E. Eleftheriou, 'Low-power neuromorphic hardware for signal processing applications: A review of architectural and system-level design approaches', IEEE Signal Proc. Magazine, 2019
- A. Sebastian*, M. Le Gallo, G. W. Burr, S. Kim, M. BrightSky, E. Eleftheriou, 'Tutorial: Brian-inspired computing using phase-change memory devices', J. Appl. Phys., vol. 124(11), 111101, 2018
- T. Moraitis*, A. Sebastian* and E. Eleftheriou, 'Short-term plasticity in neuromorphic learning', IEEE Trans. on Nanotech., vol. 12(3), 45-53, 2018
- Boybat*, M. Le Gallo, S. R. Nandakumar, T. Moraitis, T. Parnell, T. Tuma, B. Rajendran, Y. Leblebici, A. Sebastian*, E. Eleftheriou, “Neuromorphic computing with multi-memristive synapses”, Nature Communications, 2018
- Gong, T. Ide, S. Kim, I. Boybat, A. Sebastian, V. Narayanan, T. Ando*, “Signal and noise extraction from analog memory elements for neuromorphic computing”, Nature Communications, 2018
- G. W. Burr, R. M. Shelby, A. Sebastian et al., “Neuromorphic computing using non-volatile memory”, Advances in Physics X, vol. 2(1), pp. 89-124, 2017
- Tuma, A. Pantazi, M. Le Gallo, A. Sebastian, E. Eleftheriou, “Stochastic phase-change neurons”, Nature Nanotechnology, 2016 (Cover)
EXPLORATORY MEMORY:
- M. Lanza, A. Sebastian, et al., "Memristive technologies for data storage, computation, encryption, and radio-frequency communication", Science, 2022
- M. Le Gallo and A. Sebastian, "An overview of phase-change memory device physics", J. Phys. D. Appl. Phys., 2020
- Salinga*, B. Kersting, I. Ronneberger, V. P. Jonnalagadda, X. T. Vu, M. Le Gallo, I. Giannopoulos, O. Cojocaru-Miredin, R. Mazzarello, A. Sebastian*, “Monatomic phase change memory”, Nature Materials, 2018 (Cover)
- Le Gallo, D. Krebs, F. Zipolli, M. Salinga, A. Sebastian, “Collective structural relaxation in phase-change memory devices”, Adv. Electronic Materials, 2018
- W. Burr, M. J. Brightsky, A. Sebastian et al., “Recent progress in phase-change memory technology”, IEEE Journal on emerging and selected topics in circuits and systems, 2016
- Le Gallo, A. Athmanathan, D. Krebs, A. Sebastian, “Evidence for thermally assisted threshold switching behavior in nanoscale phase-change memory cells”, Journal of Applied Physics, 119, 025704, 2016
- Le Gallo, M. Kaes, A. Sebastian, D. Krebs, “Subthreshold electrical transport in amorphous phase change materials”, New Journal of Physics., 2015
- C. A. Santini*, A. Sebastian*, C. Marchiori, V. P. Jonnalagadda, L. Dellmann, W. W. Koelmans, M. D. Rossell, C. P. Rossel, E. Eleftheriou, “Oxygenated amorphous carbon for resistive memory applications”, Nature Communications, 2015
- W. Koelmans*, A. Sebastian, V. P. Jonnalagadda, D. Krebs, L. Dellmann, E. Eleftheriou, Projected phase-change memory devices, Nature communications, 6, 2015
- A. Sebastian, D. Krebs, M. Le Gallo, H. Pozidis, E. Eleftheriou, “A Collective Relaxation Model for Resistance Drift in Phase Change Memory Cells”, Proc. IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium, 2015
- A. Sebastian*, M. Le Gallo, D. Krebs, “Crystal growth within a phase change memory cell”, Nature Communications, 5(4314), 1-9, 2014
- A. Sebastian*, A. Pauza , C. Rossel, R. M. Shelby, A. F. Rodriguez, H. Pozidis and E. Eleftheriou, “Resistance switching at the nanometer scale in amorphous carbon”, New Journal of Physics, vol. 13, pp. 013020, 2011
- Sebastian*, N. Papandreou, A. Pantazi, H. Pozidis and E. Eleftheriou, “Non-resistance based cell-state metric for multi-level phase change memory”, Journal of Applied Physics, 110, 084505, 2011
- N. Papandreou, A. Pantazi, Sebastian, E. Eleftheriou, M. J. Breitwisch, C. Lam, H. Pozdis, “Estimation of Amorphous Fraction in Multilevel Phase Change Memory Cells”, Solid-state electronics, vol. 54(9), 2010
NANOSCALE DYNAMICS AND CONTROL:
- Shamsudhin, N. Laeubli, H. B. Atakan, H. Vogler, C. Hu, W. Haeberle, A. Sebastian, U. Grossniklaus and B. J. Nelson, “Massively parallelized pollen tube guidance and mechanical measurements on a Lab-on-a-Chip platform”, PLOS ONE, 11(12), 2016
- Tuma, A. Pantazi, D. R. Sahoo, P. Eib, G. Salis, H. Pozidis and A. Sebastian, “A high-bandwidth spintronic position sensor”, Nanotechnology, 25(37), 375501, 2014
- T. Tuma, A. Sebastian, J. Lygeros and A. Pantazi, “Four pillars of nanopositioning”, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 2013
- Tuma, J. Lygeros, V. Kartik, A. Sebastian and A. Pantazi, “High-speed multiresolution scanning probe microscopy based on Lissajous scan trajectories”, Nanotechnology, 23(18), pp. 185501, May 2012
- A. Sebastian, N. Shamsudhin, H. Rothuizen, U. Drechsler, W. W. Koelmans, H. Bhaskaran, H. J. Quenzer, B. Wagner, M. Despont, “Micro-cantilevers with AlN actuators and PtSi tips for multi-frequency atomic force microscopy”, Review of Scientific Instruments, vol. 83, 096107, 2012.
- A. Sebastian and A. Pantazi, “Nanopositioning With Multiple Sensors: A Case Study in Data Storage”, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 20(2), pp. 382-394, Mar. 2012.
- Bazaei, S. O. R. Moheimani and A. Sebastian, “An Analysis of Signal Transformation Approach to Triangular Waveform Tracking”, Automatica, vol. 47(4), pp. 838-847, Apr. 2011
- H. Bhaskaran, B. Gotsmann, A. Sebastian, U. Drechsler, M. A. Lantz, M. Despont, P. Jaroenapibal, R. W. Carpick, Y. Chen and K. Sridharan, “Ultralow nanoscale wear through atom-by-atom attrition in silicon-containing diamond-like carbon”, Nature Nanotechnology, vol. 5, pp. 181-185, Mar. 2010
- H. Bhaskaran, A. Sebastian and M. Despont, “Nanoscale PtSi tips for conducting probe technologies”, IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 128-131, January 2009.
- A. Sebastian, H. Bhaskaran, A. Pauza, M. Despont, H. Pozidis, “Novel Scanning Probe Concepts for Nanoscale Electrical Characterization”, Proc. IEEE Nanotechnology Conference, 2009.
- A. Sebastian and D. Wiesmann, “Modeling and experimental identification of silicon micro-heater dynamics: A systems approach”, IEEE/ASME Journal of Micro-electromechanical Systems, vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 911-920, Aug. 2008.
- A. Sebastian, A. Pantazi, H. Pozidis, and E. Eleftheriou, “Nanopositioning for Probe-based Data Storage”, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, pp. 26-35, August 2008
- Pantazi, A. Sebastian et al., "Probe-based ultrahigh-density storage technology", IBM Journal of Research and Development, vol. 52, no. 4/5, Jul/Sep 2008.
- A. Sebastian and S. Salapaka, “Design methodologies for robust nanopositioning”, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 13(6), pp. 868-876, Nov. 2005.
- A. Sebastian, A. Gannepalla, M. V. Salapaka, “A Review of the Systems Approach to the Analysis of Dynamic-Mode Atomic Force Microscopy”, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 15(5), 2007.
- A. Pantazi, A. Sebastian, H. Pozidis, E. Eleftheriou, “Two-sensor-based H∞ control for nanopositioning in probe storage”, Proc. IEEE Control and Decision Conference, 2005.
- A. Gannepalli, A. Sebastian, J. Cleveland, M. V. Salapaka, “Thermally driven non-contact atomic force microscopy”, Applied Physics Letters, 87, 111901, 2005.
- A. Sebastian, A. Gannepalli, M. V. Salapaka, “The amplitude phase dynamics and fixed points in tapping-mode atomic force microscopy”, Proc. American Control Conference, 2004.
- A. Sebastian, M. V. Salapaka, J. P. Cleveland, “Robust Control Approach to Atomic Force Microscopy”, Proc. IEEE Control and Decision Conference, 2003.
- D. R. Sahoo, A. Sebastian, M. V. Salapaka, “Transient-signal-based sample-detection in atomic force microscopy”, Applied Physics Letters, vol. 83(26), 2003.
- S. Salapaka, A. Sebastian, J. P. Cleveland, M. V. Salapaka, “High bandwidth nano-positioner: A robust control approach”, Review of Scientific Instruments, vol. 73(9), 2002.
- A. Sebastian, M. V. Salapaka, D. J. Chen and J. P. Cleveland, “Harmonic and power balance tools for atomic force microscopy”, Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 89(11), pp. 6473-6480, Jun. 2001.
SELECTED TALKS/LECTURES/PANELS:
LECTURES:
- King's College London, Oct. 2024
- Physikalisches Kolloquium, Univ. Heidelberg, Jan. 2024
- MIT, Cambridge, USA, Nov. 2023
- Texas A&M, USA, Oct. 2023
- University of Oxford, UK, Feb. 2023
- IEEE Distinguished Lecture, Jan 2023
- University of Southampton, UK, Mar. 2022
- University of Oxford, UK, Feb. 2022
- Future Computing Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Oct. 2021
- Intelligence in chip: Tomorrow of integrated circuits, IEEE CASS seasonal school, Aug. 2021
- Max Planck Institute of Microsctructure Physics, July 2021
- Mondays in Memory (MiM), TU Vienna, June 2021
- Lund University, June 2021
- Computer Architecture Fall 2020, ETH Zurich, Dec. 2020
- University College London, March 2020
- Institute of Neuroinformatics, Univ. Zurich., Nov. 2019
- Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey, April 2019
- Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, April 2019
- University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, March 2019
- Computer Systems Colloquium, Stanford University, Stanford, USA, Mar 2018
- CDT Advanced Technology Lectures, Univ. of Cambridge, UK, 2016
- Univ. of Oxford, UK, 2015
TUTORIALS:
- Short course, DRC 2024, June 2024
- EDTM, Mar. 2024
- Short course, IEDM 2023, Dec. 2023
- Photonics online meetup, Jan. 2021
- IEDM, San Francisco, Dec. 2019
- ISCAS, Sapporo, Japan, May 2019
- MRS Spring Meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 2017
TALKS:
- Invited Talk, 1st EFCL International Workshop on Sustainable AI, Zurich, Nov. 2024
- Keynote, DRC 2024, Jun. 2024
- Keynote, ICNCE, Jun. 2024
- Invited Talk, EPS Forum, Berlin, Mar. 2024
- Invited Talk, Memrisys 2023, Nov. 2023
- Invited Talk, Heidelberg, Sep. 2023
- Invited Talk, Max Planck, Sep. 2023
- Panelist, Montreaux, Apr. 2023
- Keynote, Memrisys, Boston, USA, Dec 2022
- Invited Talk, DAC Workshop, San Francisco, USA, July 2022
- Invited Talk, Embedded PCM workshop, Agrate, Italy, June 2022
- Invited Talk, Juelich Forschungszentrum, Germany, May 2022
- Invited Talk, EMRS, May 2022 (virtual)
- Keynote, IEEE International Conference on IC Design and Technology (ICICDT), Sep. 2021.
- Invited Talk, Workshop on Materials Challenges for Memory (APL Materials), April 2021
- Invited Talk, Neurotech Forum II, Workshop on Neuromorphic computing technologies: Opportunities, challenges and Applications, March 2021
- Invited Talk, NEUROTECH educational program, Jan. 2021
- Invited Talk, CASCONxEVOKE, Nov. 2020
- Invited Talk, Nature conference on neuromorphic computing, Beijing, Oct. 2019
- Ovshinsky Lecture, EP\COS, Grenoble, Sep. 2019
- Invited Talk, CLEO Europe, Munich, Germany, June 2019
- Invited Talk, VLSI, Kyoto, Japan, June 2019
- Invited Talk, DATE Workshop, Florence, Italy, March 2019
- Plenary Talk, ICEE, Bangalore, India, Dec 2018
- Invited Talk, NVMTS, Sendai, Japan, October 2018
- Invited Talk, E/PCOS, Catania, Italy, September 2018
- Invited Talk, CIMTEC, Perugia, Italy, June 2018
- Invited Talk, MRS Spring Meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, April 2018
- Invited Talk, mDAC: Memristor Technology, Desing, Automation and Computing, HiPEAC, Manchester, UK, Jan 2018
- Keynote, 17th Non-volatile Memory Technology Symposium, Aachen, Germany, 2017
- Keynote, International Conference on Memristive Materials, Devices and Systems, Athens, Greece, 2017
- Invited Talk, Beyond CMOS: From Devices to Systems, Haifa, Israel, 2017
- Invited Talk, MINDMEM Workshop, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2017
- Invited Talk, CIMTEC, Perugia, Italy, 2016
- Invited Talk, E/PCOS, Cambridge, UK, 2016
- Invited Talk, Memristive Symposium, Dresden, Germany, 2016
- Invited Talk, Institute for Mathematics and its Applications, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, 2016
- Invited Talk, MRS Spring Meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 2016
- Keynote Talk, Memrisys, Cyprus, 2015
- Invited Talk, Swiss Nano Convention, Neuchatel, Switzerland, 2015
PANELS:
- Panelist, Vaishwik Bharatiay Vaigyanik Summit, Oct. 2020
- Panelist, International workshop on network on chip architectures, Oct. 2020
- Panelist, AICAS, Sep. 2020
RESEARCH IN THE NEWS:
PRIMARY COLLABORATORS (IBM):
- Dr. Manuel Le Gallo, IBM Research - Zurich
- Dr. Abbas Rahimi, IBM Research - Zurich
- Dr. Ghazi Sarwat Syed, IBM Research - Zurich
- Dr. Irem Boybat, IBM Research - Zurich
- Dr. William Andrew Simon, IBM Research - Zurich
- Dr. Hadjer Benmeziane, IBM Research - Zurich
- Dr. Vijay Narayanan, IBM Research - Yorktown Heights
- Dr. Geoffrey Burr, IBM Research - Almaden
- Dr. Sidney Tsai, IBM Research - Almaden
- Dr. Pritish Narayanan, IBM Research - Almaden
- Dr. Nicole Saulnier, IBM Research - Albany
PRIMARY COLLABORATORS (EXTERNAL):
- Prof. Luca Benini, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
- Prof. Theodore Antonakopoulos, University of Patras, Greece
- Prof. Harish Bhaskaran, University of Oxford, UK
- Prof. Bipin Rajendran, King's College London, UK
- Prof. Wolfram Pernice, Heidelberg University, Germany
- Dr. Sergi Abadal, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
- Prof. Taekwang Jang, ETH Zürich, Switzerland