ECE ILLINOIS graduate students win VSLI-TSA Best Student Paper Award

A team of ECE ILLINOIS graduate students recently won the 2018 VSLI-TSA Best Student Paper Award for "All Optical NOR Gate via Tunnel-Junction Transistor Lasers for High Speed Optical Logic Processors." Co-authors Ardy Winoto, Junyi Qiu, and Yu-Ting Peng are advised by Nick Holonyak, Jr. Endowed Chair Emeritus Milton Feng and John Bardeen Endowed Chair Emeritus Nick Holonyak, Jr. Both emeritus faculty members are affiliated with the Micro + Nanotechnology Lab; Feng is also affiliated with the Coordinated Science Lab.

 The team's research primarily focused on tunnel-junction transistor lasers (TJ-TLs), a critical element in the formation of a universal electro-optical NOR gate and an optical bistable latch that can be developed into a compact chip-level solution for optical logic processors operating at Ghz speed. Through their work, the team aimed to circumvent common problems in this ever-expanding networked world such as the limitations of today's digital electronic computer from RC time constant and carrier delay times of electronic logic.  

Organized by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and co-sponsored by IEEE, the 2018 International Symposium is a platform for technical exchanges by experts from all over the world in the fields of semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing. 

Held once every two years, VLSI-TSA (Technology, Systems and Applications), conjoined with International Symposium on VLSI Design, Automation and Test (VLSI-DAT), has been the premier event on VLSI in Taiwan and a leading technology conference in the world for over 30 years.