Dr. Charlotte Frenkel from the Technical University of Delft set records with a low-power neuromorphic chip she designed as part of her Ph.D. In this episode of Brains and Machines , she talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London about what she has learned about building simplicity into chips and integrity into benchmarks. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University....
Jun 06, 2025•53 min
The semiconductor industry is undergoing a shift with the rapid adoption of multi-die design, driven by the promise of improved power, performance, and area (PPA). But with innovation comes complexity, and one of the biggest challenges is ensuring silicon reliability and health through effective multi-die testing. In this episode, we dive deep into the world of multi-die design for test: what it means, how it differs from traditional monolithic design testing, and why it’s critical for the futur...
May 30, 2025•26 min
Dharmendra Modha ’s TrueNorth chip added the word neuromorphic to the technorati lexicon back in 2014. In this episode of Brains and Machines , he talks to Sunny Bains of University College London about how that project led to his work on NorthPole and the axiomatic approach he took to design.
May 02, 2025•50 min
In this episode of Brains and Machines , Dr. Terry Sejnowski talks to Dr. Sunny Bains of the University College London about how information flows both ways between neuroscience and engineered intelligence, proposes a new way of looking at memory and considers the Hopfield-Hinton Nobel Prize.
Apr 04, 2025•51 min
Dr. Jennifer Hasler of Georgia Tech is best known for her work with field programmable analog arrays (FPAAs). In this episode of Brains and Machines , she talks about the importance of, and progress in, analog electronics for AI with Dr. Sunny Bains of the University College London. Discussion follows with Dr . Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University....
Mar 07, 2025•48 min
Dr. Tony Lewis, CTO of BrainChip, and four other key scientists talk to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London. They discuss their business strategy, their temporal event-based neural network (TENN) and the next iteration of the Akida chip. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Prof. Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University....
Feb 07, 2025•47 min
In this episode of Brains and Machines, emeritus Prof. Rodney Brooks of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, currently CTO of Robust AI, talks about bottom-up and top-down approaches to robotics and AI with Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Prof Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University....
Jan 03, 2025•49 min
Many IC design teams struggle with tight deadlines and limited resources. The industry is constantly searching for new ways to improve efficiency without compromising design quality. While they might find tools that run incrementally faster, the real gains come from adjustments to the design flow – including what we call ‘shift-left’ strategies that pull signoff-quality verification into the design implementation stage. Join our host, Eric Singer, for a compelling interview with David Abercrombi...
Dec 13, 2024•28 min
Dr. Katie Schuman of the University of Tennessee explains the advantages of evolutionary approaches in neural processing to Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.
Dec 06, 2024•48 min
Dr. Sunny Bains talks to four key figures at Innatera , a spin out from the University of Delft in the Netherlands. They are hoping that their latest spiking neural network chip will become AI of choice for people working on sensor applications. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Prof. Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University....
Nov 08, 2024•49 min
Renesas, known for its industry-leading MCU and MPU portfolio, has a comprehensive power management portfolio addressing existing and emerging applications. This compelling interview covers how Renesas is addressing power challenges in the automotive and industrial sectors, including solutions for xEV traction inverters, zonal control, and portable power stations. Renesas’ approach emphasizes complete, scalable designs and rapid prototyping, facilitating faster time to market for manufacturers....
Nov 06, 2024•19 min
UCL’s Dr. Sunny Bains talks parallelism, neural net efficiency and risk taking with Caltech’s Prof. Carver Mead . Now an emeritus professor, Mead has been instrumental in the development of chip design, and was one of the first employees of Noyce and Moore, which later became Intel. He’s also one of the founders of the field of neuromorphic engineering. Discussion follows with Dr Giulia D’Angelo from the Czech Technical University in Prague and Prof. Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins Unive...
Oct 04, 2024•1 hr 6 min
There is a lot of hype in the industry around AI, but behind the hype there is the reality. That reality is that AI really is impacting virtually every aspect of semiconductor design. However, its not as simple as taking general purpose AI solutions and hoping they work for EDA, the risks are too high and when dealing with parts per billion (or trillion) in acceptable errors, hallucinations are not acceptable. What is needed are Verifiable AI solutions that deliver results that users can trust a...
Sep 26, 2024•31 min
The podcast interview explores the role of RISC-V in the automotive sector. It begins with a brief introduction to RISC-V, explaining it as an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA). The discussion then shifts to current automotive trends from a processing perspective, highlighting advancements and the increasing importance of robust, high-performance computing.
Jul 23, 2024•13 min
In this special episode of the Brains and Machines podcast, Dr. Sunny Bains and Dr. Giulia D’Angelo talk to four early career researchers: Dr. Kenneth Stewart, a computer scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC; Dr. Laura Kriener, a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Bern in Switzerland; Jens Pedersen, a Ph.D. student at The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden; and Dr. Fabrizio Ottati, an AI/ML computer architect at NXP Semiconductors in Ha...
May 31, 2024•53 min
In this podcast, we talk focus on security, talking to Infineon Technologies about the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and its implications for the entire supply chain, plus a chat with zeroRISC about the role of open-source silicon security in embedded systems and IoT.
May 23, 2024•33 min
In this episode, Dr. Sunny Bains talks to Dr. Dylan Muir, the head of research at SynSense. They discuss the company’s products, including Speck, Xylo, and Rockpool, some of the design choices that were made to bring these to market, and their recent acquisition of sister company IniVation. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Fortiss research institute in Munich, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.
May 17, 2024•46 min
This week’s EE Times Current features three exclusive interviews recently conducted by embedded.com’s editor-in-chief, Nitin Dahad at Embedded World 2024 in Nuremberg. Nitin discussed topics including AI inferencing, Software Ecosystems and Trends in Industrial Automation.
May 09, 2024•29 min
In this episode, Dr. Sunny Bains talks with Professor Christian Mayr from the Technical University of Dresden, who worked on SpiNNaker with Steve Furber for many years. He is taking that project into the future with SpiNNaker 2, which is mostly built, SpiNNaker 3, which is his next design project, and the startup SpiNNcloud . Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo Marie Curie Fellow at The Czech Technical University in Prague, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University...
May 03, 2024•43 min
Dr. Elisa Donati of the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich talks to Dr. Sunny Bains about neuromorphic circuits for prosthetics, drug delivery and more. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Fortiss research institute in Munich, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University.
Apr 19, 2024•45 min
In this episode, Dr. Sunny Bains discusses neuromorphic chips with Dr. Amirreza Yousefzadeh , who has most recently worked at imec and the University of Twente. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Fortiss research institute in Munich, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of Johns Hopkins University....
Apr 05, 2024•53 min
Join us in lasteset episode of EETimes Current as we delve into the transformative potential of 1.6 Terabit Ethernet (1.6TbE) alongside the pivotal role played by advanced 224G SerDes and emerging linear optical interfaces. Discover how this convergence optimizes area, power, and latency, enabling efficient processing of large language models and unstructured data with memory pooling and cache coherence. From mitigating datapath bottlenecks to unlocking new frontiers in compute throughput, we di...
Mar 20, 2024•28 min
In this episode, Professor Shih-Chii Liu , co-director of the Sensors Group at the Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI)—part of both the ETH and the University of Zurich, Switzerland—talks to Brains and Machines host, Dr. Sunny Bains , about neuromorphic cochlea, sparsity and deep networks, and what it will take for the technology to solve real problems in industry. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Fortiss research institute in Munich, and Professor Ralph Etienne-Cummings of J...
Mar 15, 2024•46 min
In this episode, Professor Emre Neftci, director of the Neuromorphic Software Ecosystems group at the Peter Grünberg Institute, talks to Brains and Machines host, Dr. Sunny Bains. He and his PGI colleagues, part of the Jülich Research Centre in Germany, think about how neurons can be trained and organized to learn in an efficient and brain-inspired way. You'll hear about his work in making backpropagation compatible with spiking neural networks, dealing with device variability, and one- and few-...
Feb 16, 2024•45 min
In this episode of Brains and Machines , you’ll hear Dr. Chiara Bartolozzi talk about how neuromorphic technology can be used to implement attention mechanisms, the importance of embodiment, and why we need a solid theory of how neural systems can work together to create intelligence.
Feb 09, 2024•45 min
In this episode of the Brains and Machines podcast, EE Times regular Sunny Bains talks to Dr. Tobi Delbrück, one of the original neuromorphic engineers from Carver Mead's team at Caltech. Now a professor at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich, he has spent his career developing neuromorphic cameras and other technology. In this interview, you'll find out how he got started in the field, his work developing the dynamic vision sensor (also known as an event camera) and the pros and cons of...
Jan 25, 2024•47 min
In this episode of the Brains and Machines podcast, EE Times regular Sunny Bains gets deep into nanoscale ferroelectrics with Professor Beatriz Noheda , director of the Groningen Cognitive Systems and Materials Center (CogniGron). They discuss how this unusual interdisciplinary research center works, why nanoscale ferroelectrics may be useful in brain-like systems, and a little about how they are designed and fabricated....
Jan 12, 2024•42 min
In this episode of the Brains and Machines podcast, Dr. Giulia D’Angelo from the Italian Institute of Technology interviews her IIT colleague, Dr. Simeon Bamford, who is currently working on tactile neuromorphic sensors. They talk about creating circuits to perform functions lost to brain damage, Bamford’s involvement with the commercialization of dynamic vision sensors, and his latest research on robotic touch. Discussion follows with Dr. Sunny Bains of University College London, and Prof. Ralp...
Dec 15, 2023•45 min
Our future environment depends on renewable and sustainable energy. To maximize sustainable energy sources, energy gathering and grid integration are essential. Silicon carbide (SiC) makes green energy systems more efficient and resilient. To ensure high-quality goods and system design flexibility, end-to-end vertical integration is necessary. In this podcast with Simon Keeton, executive vice president and general manager of the power solutions group at onsemi, we analyze the pivotal role that S...
Dec 08, 2023•15 min
In the latest episode of Brains and Machines , EE Times regular Dr. Sunny Bains talks to Professor Melika Payvand , who designs neural systems from the circuit-level up at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich. You'll find out the role that memristors are playing in the systems she designs, why neural circuits need to operate at different timescales, and why copying some features of biological dendrites could add computational power to silicon brains. Discussion follows with Dr. Giulia D’A...
Dec 01, 2023•50 min
