ICTEAM colloquium series
icteam | Louvain-la-Neuve
ICTEAM colloquium series
Seminars to Come
[ICTM] 2026-09-17 (10:45) : A Brief History of Microelectronics
At Shannon
Speaker:
Jean-Pierre Colinge (UCLouvain, University of California, TSMC)
Abstract: Integrated circuit ("Silicon chips") are now part of our everyday life. They are at the core of almost every modern device: cars, toys, washing machines, musical birthday cards, and of course, those smartphones without which we can no longer access our bank account or read the infamous QR codes that we now encounter on a daily basis. These silicon chips are also at the center of a war for technological supremacy between China and the USA. In an era where artificial intelligence is perceived as the new Eldorado, the race for ever faster and more powerful computing power has transformed the semiconductor industry into a resource more valuable than petroleum itself.
The technology that produces advanced integrated circuits is evolving at an exponential rate (Moore's Law); the investments and tools used in microchip fabrication have reached astronomical costs that only a handful of companies can afford.
This Lecture covers the evolution of transistor and integrated circuit technology up to today's most advanced nodes (2 nm) and the geopolitical aspects issues at stake.
[ICTM] 2026-09-22 (11:00) : Ferroelectric Field-Effects with Hafnium Oxide for Neuromorphic Hardware
At Shannon
Speaker:
Laura Bégon-Lours (ETH Zürich)
Abstract: In ferroelectric resistive weights, the strength of the synaptic connection between two neurons is stored in the device conductance. During learning, programming pulses are applied to the synaptic weight, which reconfigures the ferroelectric domains and adjusts the conductance. One strategy to lower the energy cost during the training phase is to lower the duration of the programming pulses. However, the latter cannot be shorter than the self-loading time of the resistive weights, limited by parasitic delays in the circuits. We fabricate ferroelectric resistive weights using bilayers based on hafnia/zirconia superlattices and tungsten oxide. Using this process, CMOS Back-End-Of-Line integration was demonstrated. We determine the maximal device area for which the self-loading time becomes sufficiently short to enable 20 ns programming, which corresponds to a maximum of 3 pJ per pulse. We show that spiking neural network can be deployed on these devices for adaptive electroencephalography decoding. Finaly, ferroelectric capacitors based on the same material also exhibit low-power programming and fast switching speed: full ferroelectric domain reversal is obtained for 5V pulses of only 1 ns.
Previous Seminars
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[ICTM] 2026-04-07 (13:00) : Dealing with Variability and Mismatch in Closed‑Loop Neuromorphic Control: From Limitations to Design Opportunities
At Shannon room
Speaker:
Alessio Franci (Liège)
Abstract: Neural systems exhibit substantial variability in their underlying parameters, yet they reliably generate robust and adaptive closed-loop behaviors in sensorimotor tasks. Neuromorphic systems display an analogous form of variability, primarily due to transistor mismatch, raising the question of how such mismatch can be exploited rather than suppressed. Understanding how to harness this inherent device-level variability to design robust and adaptive neuromorphic controllers is an active and promising research direction.
In this talk, I will first introduce the mechanisms and functional roles of variability in biological neural systems and relate them to parameter mismatch in neuromorphic hardware, with a particular focus on closed-loop control scenarios. Building on this background, I will present two recent lines of work: (i) variability in human gait control, and (ii) a quantitative analysis of mismatch effects in fully analog neuromorphic neurons. I will conclude with an overview of emerging neuro-inspired strategies leveraging transistor mismatch to achieve robustness and adaptability in neuromorphic control systems.
[ICTM] 2026-02-24 (13:00) : Distributed, Coordination-Free Programming: 10 Years of Progress Since Lasp
At Shannon Room, Maxwell Building, 3 Place du Levant, Louvain-la-Neuve
Speaker:
Peter VAN ROY (UCL)
Abstract: Consensus is a critical building block for building fault-tolerant distributed systems. It is widely believed that without consensus, large distributed applications on the Internet could not exist. But recent advances show that consistent replication can be achieved without consensus by using convergent data structures such as CRDTs (conflict-free replicated data types). This is called coordination-free programming and it has become a credible alternative to consensus. The Lasp system is the first to compose CRDTs. It was published in 2015 in the ACM Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming (PPDP) and the paper won the 10-year most influential paper award at PPDP 2025. Lasp’s coordination-free model has inspired a decade of progress in academia and industry. As the industry shifts toward multi-region deployments, Lasp’s core insight — that coordination can be the exception, not the rule — continues to shape how we build reliable, scalable systems today.
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