cfaed Seminar Series

M.S. Eng. Jacopo Secco , DET - Department of Electronics Engineering and Telecommunications Politecnico di Torino

Memristive elements and neuromorphic systems: from the devices to their implementation

28.04.2016 (Thursday) , 13:00 - 14:00
Seminar Room 115 (HAL) , Hallwachsstr. 3 , 01069 Dresden

CMOS technology has reached, or is reaching, its climax and it’s time to enhance the
knowledge of new technologies and elements that are able to be exploited in the next
generation of computing devices. In 1971, at the University of Berkley, Professor Leon O.
Chua developed the analytical model for a new class of electronic elements called
memristors. These elements are two-port non-linear resistors whose dynamics can be
formally described through flux-charge models instead of the canonic voltage-current
curves. Memristors gained the interest of the scientific community after the first industrial
prototype was built at the HP labs by Dr. Stanley Williams in 2008. From then on, the
study of memristors, or to better say the search for elements with memristive behavior,
became more and more prominent thanks to their properties. Parallel to the study of the
devices, scientists from all over the world became more and more interested in their
possible applications. Due to their particular dynamics and their capability to change their
electrical resistance, memristors are seen as the more probable mean to simulate
biological neural synapses. As a matter of fact memristors are usually implemented, in
theory and practically, in more complex systems such as cellular neural networks, cellular
automata and perceptrons, which are all systems that exploit biologically inspired
algorithms for machine learning and big data classification. In conclusion a deep
understanding of the physics of these elements is required for building complex systems
based on memristors in order to step forward in the develop of such devices.

Jacopo Secco began his studies in 2008 at Politecnico di Torino in Biomedical
Engineering , after having served an year as Officer Cadet of the Italian Army at
the Military Academy of Modena. At Politecnico he gained his Bachelor of Science
and his Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
During this period he was able to deepen his interests in a wide range of aspects
about his discipline. In 2011 he cooperated with the Human Genetics Foundation
(HUGEF) of the Universitá degli Studi di Torino for developing a bio-statistical
algorithm for the gene count of laboratory bio-samples, which became the topic of
his Bachelor thesis. In 2012 he was invited at the Houston Methodist Research
Institute as graduate research fellow in the team of Dr. Alessandro Grattoni to
develop the Nano-Delivery System, an implantable device for nano-drug delivery,
where other than writing his Master thesis he experienced in-vitro and in-vivo
experimentation. In 2014 he began his Ph.D. at Politecnico di Torino under the
supervision of Professor Fernando Corinto on the topic of “Memristor Devices and
Neuromorphic Systems”. During his Ph.D. that is still on-going, he was able to
cooperate with various Institutions such as EPFL with Prof. Sandro Carrara, Kookmin
University with Prof. Keyong-Sik Min and with TUD under the supervision of Prof.
Ronald Tetzlaff. Thanks to his work on neuromorphic systems Jacopo patented a
tele-medical device for the follow up of patients with cutaneous ulcers exploiting a
cellular automaton and is co-founder and head of the Strat-Up responsible for its
distribution.

Go back