Abu Sebastian
contact information




links
more information
More information: Google Scholar Citations | Neuromorphic and In-memory Computing | European Research Council (ERC) Project | EU FETOPEN Project WiPLASH | EU 2020 Project Mnemosene | EU 2020 Project Fun-COMP | EU FP 7 Diaspora | EU FP7 Project CareRAMM | In-memory computing@NeurIPS | IBM AI Hardwareprofile
SHORT BIOGRAPHY:
Abu Sebastian 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. Since 2006, he is a Research Staff Member at IBM Research - Zurich in Rüschlikon, Switzerland. He was a contributor to several key projects in the space of storage and memory technologies and currently leads the research effort on in-memory computing at IBM Zurich. He has published over 150 articles in journals and conference proceedings. He also holds over 40 granted patents.
Dr. Sebastian 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. In 2016 he was named an IBM Master Inventor and in 2018, he was named a Principal Research Staff Member. In 2019 he received the Ovshinsky Lectureship Award for his contributions to "Phase-change materials for cognitive computing". Dr. Sebastian served on the editorial board of the journal, Mechatronics from 2008 till 2015. He served on the memory technologies committee of the IEDM from 2015-2016. He currently serves on the Technical Program Committees of European symposium on Phase-Change and Ovonic Sciences (E\PCOS) and Non-volatile memory technology symposium (NVMTS).
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:
IN-MEMORY COMPUTING:
- 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
NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING:
- 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:
- 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*, 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
NANOTECHNOLOGY:
- 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* 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
- 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* 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.,” 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*, 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:
Invited Tutorial, IEDM, San Francisco, Dec. 2019
Invited Lecture, Institute of Neuroinformatics, Univ. Zurich., Nov. 2019
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
Tutorial, ISCAS, Sapporo, Japan, May 2019
Invited Lecture, Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey, April 2019
Invited Lecture, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, April 2019
Invited Talk, DATE Workshop, Florence, Italy, March 2019
Invited Lecture, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, 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 Lecture, Computer Systems Colloquium, Stanford University, Stanford, USA, Mar 2018
Invited Talk, mDAC: Memristor Technology, Desing, Automation and Computing, HiPEAC, Manchester, UK, Jan 2018
Keynote Lecture, 17th Non-volatile Memory Technology Symposium, Aachen, Germany, 2017
Keynote Lecture, 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 Tutorial, MRS Spring Meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 2017
Invited Lecture, CDT Advanced Technology Lectures, Univ. of Cambridge, UK, 2016
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 Lecture, Univ. of Oxford, UK, 2015
Invited Talk, Swiss Nano Convention, Neuchatel, Switzerland, 2015
RESEARCH IN THE NEWS:
Photonic devices compute in memory: Nature highlight
In-memory computing using photonic memory devices
IBM reveals 8-bit analog chip with phase-change memory
Dual 8-bit breakthroughs bring AI to the edge
Keep it simple: Towards single-elemental phase-change memory
Novel synaptic architecture for brain inspired computing
Glassy antimony makes monatomic phase change memory
IBM's new in-memory computing solution makes business AI training faster, easier
IBM: Our in-memory computing breakthrough will cut cost of training AI
Understanding resistance drift in amorphous semiconductors
IBM Blog on National Inventor's day
IBM can run an experimental AI in memory, not on processors (MIT Tech Review)
Computational Memory (IBM Blog)
IBM PhD Fellowship to Nandakumar (IBM Blog)
Unsupervised learning with artificial neurons (IBM Blog)
Newsweek article on phase-change neuron
Kuenstliche Neuronen aus Rueschlikon
ERC Consolidator Grant (IBM Blog)
Sub-threshold transport in PCM (EE Times)
Threshold switching in PCM (EE Times)
Crystal growth in PCM (EE Times)
Crystal growth in PCM (IBM Blog)
Profile of a scientist (IBM Blog)