Abu Sebastian

Title

Distinguished Scientist & Manager

Bio

Email: ase[AT]zurich[dot]ibm[dot]com

SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Abu Sebastian is a distinguished scientist and manager at IBM Research - Zurich in Rüschlikon, Switzerland. He 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. Dr. Sebastian is the author/co-author of over 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals/conference proceedings and holds over 80 US patents. He 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 and in 2020, he was awarded an ERC Proof-of-concept grant. He is an IBM Master Inventor since 2016. He was named Principal and Distinguished Research Staff Member in 2018 and 2020, respectively. In 2019 he received the Ovshinsky Lectureship Award for his contributions to 'Phase-change materials for cognitive computing'. In 2023, he received the Prof. L. K. Maheshwari Foundation Distinguished Alumnus Award from BITS Pilani, India. In 2023, he was also conferred the title of Visiting Professor in Materials by University of Oxford. He has served on the technical program committees of several conferences including IEDM, AICAS, NVMTS and E\PCOS and has served as an editor/guest editor for Mechatronics, APL Material, Applied Physics Letters, and IEEE Design and Test. He is a Distinguished Lecturer and Fellow of the IEEE.

SELECTED EXTERNALLY FUNDED PROJECTS:

DARPA OPTIMA
Horizon Europe NeuroSoC
Horizon Europe EIC Pathfinder HYBRAIN
Horizon Europe EIC Pathfinder BioPIM
European Research Council (ERC) Proof-of-concept Grant
H2020 FET Open WiPLASH
H2020 ICT FunCOMP
H2020 ICT MNEMOSENE
European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator grant
Swiss National Science Foundation Sinergia Grant, Hybrid CMOS/Memristive Neuromorphic Systems for Data Analytics
FP7 CareRAMM
FP7 DIASPORA
FP7 PROTEM

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Google Scholar

BOOK:

S. Spiga, A. Sebastian, D. Querlioz, B. Rajendran, 'Memristive devices for brain-inspired computing', Elsevier, 2020

IN-MEMORY COMPUTING:

C. Lammie et al., 'The inherent adversarial robustness of analog in-memory computing', 2024
J. Buechel et al., 'Kernel Approximation using Analog In-Memory Computing', 2024
M. Le Gallo et al., 'Demonstration of 4-quadrant analog in-memory matrix multiplication in a single modulation', NPJ Unconventional Computing, 2024
M. Le Gallo et al., 'A 64-core mixed-signal in-memory compute chip based on phase-change memory for deep neural network inference', Nature Electronics, 2023
J. Klein et al., 'ALPINE: Analog In-Memory Acceleration with Tight Processor Integration for Deep Learning, IEEE Trans. Computers, 2022
G. Karunaratne et al., 'In-memory realization of in-situ few-shot continual learning with a dynamically evolving explicit memory', ESSDERC, 2022
R. Khaddam-Aljameh et al., 'HERMES core: A 1.59TOPS/mm2 PCM on 14nm CMOS in-memory compute core using 300ps/LSB linearized CCO-based ADCs', IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 2022
J. Feldmann, N. Youngblood, M. Karpov, H. Gehring, M. Stappers, M. Le Gallo, X. Fu, A. Lukashchuk, A. S. Raja, J. Liu, C. D. Wright, A. Sebastian*, T. J. Kippenberg*, W. H. P. Pernice*, H. Bhaskaran*, 'Parallel convolution processing using an integrated photonic tensor core', Nature, 2021
A. Sebastian*, M. Le Gallo, R. Khaddam-Aljameh, E. Eleftheriou, 'Memory devices and applications for in-memory computing', Nature Nanotechnology, 2020
V. Joshi, M. Le Gallo*, S. Haefeli, I. Boybat, S. R. Nandakumar, C. Piveteau, M. Dazzi, B. Rajendran, A. Sebastian*, E. Eleftheriou, 'Accurate deep neural network inference using computational phase-change memory', Nature Communications, 2020
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

NEURO-VECTOR SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURES:

G. Camposampiero et al., "Towards learning abductive reasoning using vsa distributed representations", International Conference on Neural-Symbolic Learning and Reasoning, 2024
N. Menet et al., "MIMONETS: Multiple-input-multiple-output neural networks exploiting computation in superposition", NeurIPS, 2023
J. Langenegger, G. Karunaratne, M. Hersche, L. Benini, A. Sebastian*, A. Rahimi*, "In-memory factorization of holographic perceptual representations", Nature Nanotechnology, 2023
M. Hersche, M. Zeqiri, L. Benini, A. Sebastian*, A. Rahimi*, "A neuro-vector-symbolic architecture for solving Raven’s progressive matrices", Nature Machine Intelligence, 2023
M. Hersche, G. Karunaratne, G. Cherubini, L. Benini, A. Sebastian*, A. Rahimi*, "Constrained few-shot class-incremental learning", Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), 2022
G. Karunaratne, M. Schmuck, M. Le Gallo, G. Cherubini, L. Benini, A. Sebastian*, A. Rahimi*, 'Robust high-dimensional memory-augmented neural networks', Nature Communications, 12, 2468, 2021
G. Karunaratne, M. Le Gallo, G. Cherubini, L. Benini, A. Rahimi*, A. Sebastian*, 'In-memory hyperdimensional computing', Nature Electronics, 2020

NEUROMORPHIC COMPUTING:

S. Ghazi Sarwat*, B. Kersting, T. Moraitis, V. P. Jonnalagadda, A. Sebastian*, "Phase-change memtransistive synapses for mixed-plasticity neural computations", Nature Nanotechnology, 2022
B. Rajendran, A. Sebastian, M. Schmuker, N. Srinivasa, E. Eleftheriou, 'Low-power neuromorphic hardware for signal processing applications: A review of architectural and system-level design approaches', IEEE Signal Proc. Magazine, 2019
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:

M. Lanza, A. Sebastian, et al., "Memristive technologies for data storage, computation, encryption, and radio-frequency communication", Science, 2022
M. Le Gallo and A. Sebastian, "An overview of phase-change memory device physics", J. Phys. D. Appl. Phys., 2020
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, D. Krebs, M. Le Gallo, H. Pozidis, E. Eleftheriou, “A Collective Relaxation Model for Resistance Drift in Phase Change Memory Cells”, Proc. IEEE International Reliability Physics Symposium, 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
N. Papandreou, A. Pantazi, Sebastian, E. Eleftheriou, M. J. Breitwisch, C. Lam, H. Pozdis, “Estimation of Amorphous Fraction in Multilevel Phase Change Memory Cells”, Solid-state electronics, vol. 54(9), 2010

NANOSCALE DYNAMICS AND CONTROL:

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, N. Shamsudhin, H. Rothuizen, U. Drechsler, W. W. Koelmans, H. Bhaskaran, H. J. Quenzer, B. Wagner, M. Despont, “Micro-cantilevers with AlN actuators and PtSi tips for multi-frequency atomic force microscopy”, Review of Scientific Instruments, vol. 83, 096107, 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
H. 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, H. Bhaskaran, A. Pauza, M. Despont, H. Pozidis, “Novel Scanning Probe Concepts for Nanoscale Electrical Characterization”, Proc. IEEE Nanotechnology Conference, 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., "Probe-based ultrahigh-density storage technology", 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, A. Gannepalla, M. V. Salapaka, “A Review of the Systems Approach to the Analysis of Dynamic-Mode Atomic Force Microscopy”, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, vol. 15(5), 2007.
A. Pantazi, A. Sebastian, H. Pozidis, E. Eleftheriou, “Two-sensor-based H∞ control for nanopositioning in probe storage”, Proc. IEEE Control and Decision Conference, 2005.
A. Gannepalli, A. Sebastian, J. Cleveland, M. V. Salapaka, “Thermally driven non-contact atomic force microscopy”, Applied Physics Letters, 87, 111901, 2005.
A. Sebastian, A. Gannepalli, M. V. Salapaka, “The amplitude phase dynamics and fixed points in tapping-mode atomic force microscopy”, Proc. American Control Conference, 2004.
A. Sebastian, M. V. Salapaka, J. P. Cleveland, “Robust Control Approach to Atomic Force Microscopy”, Proc. IEEE Control and Decision Conference, 2003.
D. R. Sahoo, A. Sebastian, M. V. Salapaka, “Transient-signal-based sample-detection in atomic force microscopy”, Applied Physics Letters, vol. 83(26), 2003.
S. Salapaka, A. Sebastian, J. P. Cleveland, M. V. Salapaka, “High bandwidth nano-positioner: A robust control approach”, Review of Scientific Instruments, vol. 73(9), 2002.
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/PANELS:

LECTURES:

King's College London, Oct. 2024
Physikalisches Kolloquium, Univ. Heidelberg, Jan. 2024
MIT, Cambridge, USA, Nov. 2023
Texas A&M, USA, Oct. 2023
University of Oxford, UK, Feb. 2023
IEEE Distinguished Lecture, Jan 2023
University of Southampton, UK, Mar. 2022
University of Oxford, UK, Feb. 2022
Future Computing Laboratory, ETH Zurich, Oct. 2021
Intelligence in chip: Tomorrow of integrated circuits, IEEE CASS seasonal school, Aug. 2021
Max Planck Institute of Microsctructure Physics, July 2021
Mondays in Memory (MiM), TU Vienna, June 2021
Lund University, June 2021
Computer Architecture Fall 2020, ETH Zurich, Dec. 2020
University College London, March 2020
Institute of Neuroinformatics, Univ. Zurich., Nov. 2019
Sabanci University, Istanbul, Turkey, April 2019
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, April 2019
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, March 2019
Computer Systems Colloquium, Stanford University, Stanford, USA, Mar 2018
CDT Advanced Technology Lectures, Univ. of Cambridge, UK, 2016
Univ. of Oxford, UK, 2015

TUTORIALS:

Short course, DRC 2024, June 2024
EDTM, Mar. 2024
Short course, IEDM 2023, Dec. 2023
Photonics online meetup, Jan. 2021
IEDM, San Francisco, Dec. 2019
ISCAS, Sapporo, Japan, May 2019
MRS Spring Meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, 2017

TALKS:

Invited Talk, 1st EFCL International Workshop on Sustainable AI, Zurich, Nov. 2024
Keynote, DRC 2024, Jun. 2024
Keynote, ICNCE, Jun. 2024
Invited Talk, EPS Forum, Berlin, Mar. 2024
Invited Talk, Memrisys 2023, Nov. 2023
Invited Talk, Heidelberg, Sep. 2023
Invited Talk, Max Planck, Sep. 2023
Panelist, Montreaux, Apr. 2023
Keynote, Memrisys, Boston, USA, Dec 2022
Invited Talk, DAC Workshop, San Francisco, USA, July 2022
Invited Talk, Embedded PCM workshop, Agrate, Italy, June 2022
Invited Talk, Juelich Forschungszentrum, Germany, May 2022
Invited Talk, EMRS, May 2022 (virtual)
Keynote, IEEE International Conference on IC Design and Technology (ICICDT), Sep. 2021.
Invited Talk, Workshop on Materials Challenges for Memory (APL Materials), April 2021
Invited Talk, Neurotech Forum II, Workshop on Neuromorphic computing technologies: Opportunities, challenges and Applications, March 2021
Invited Talk, NEUROTECH educational program, Jan. 2021
Invited Talk, CASCONxEVOKE, Nov. 2020
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
Invited Talk, DATE Workshop, Florence, Italy, 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 Talk, mDAC: Memristor Technology, Desing, Automation and Computing, HiPEAC, Manchester, UK, Jan 2018
Keynote, 17th Non-volatile Memory Technology Symposium, Aachen, Germany, 2017
Keynote, 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 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 Talk, Swiss Nano Convention, Neuchatel, Switzerland, 2015