Prof. Kwong is the Executive Director of Institute of Microelectronics (IME), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore and a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at National University of Singapore (NUS). He was Earl N. and Margaret Bransfield Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin from 1990-2007 and the Temasek Professor of NUS from 2001-2004.

Prof. Kwong received IBM Faculty Award in 1984-86, Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Inventor Awards in 1993-94, Halliburton Foundation Excellent Teaching Award in 1994, Engineering Foundation Award in 1995, IEEE George Smith Award in 2007, and the 2011 IEEE Frederik Philips Award with citation: “For leadership in silicon technology and excellence in the management of microelectronics R&D.” Prof. Kwong was conferred in 2012 the President’s Science and Technology Medal, the highest award bestowed on individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the development of Singapore. He was recognised for his distinguished, sustained and exceptional contributions to Singapore’s science and engineering landscape, particularly in advancing the semiconductor industry through R&D, forging of strategic research partnerships, and enhancing competitiveness of Singapore’s semiconductor ecosystem towards a knowledge-based economy. Prof. Kwong is an IEEE Fellow, is the author of more than 1100 referred archival publications, and has presented more than 90 plenary and invited talks at international conferences.

Abstract

Mobile society is opening the way to “Always-On” future where we are constantly connected to everything we care, which allows us to do “Anything”, “Anytime”, from “Anywhere”. This future mobile society will come true only when major technology advances are successfully made to overcome challenges in mobile devices, connectivity, and cloud computing infrastructure. Besides the race for higher processing speed, display quality, and wireless communication speed, mobile devices continue to be miniaturized and they will be transformed into wearable devices eventually. Wireless sensor networks need to be integrated with the cloud platform to realize ubiquitous connection to environment and objects. Green data center innovation is inevitable for sustainable and scalable future of the cloud. While incessant technology push dictated by Moore’s Law is certainly relevant, there are still so much more to innovate. MEMS technology will enable sensors to connect with “Things” in body area, ambience, and remote environment, as well as energy harvesting devices to power the sensor nodes. Advanced wafer-level packaging and 3D integration technologies will be essential in extremely miniaturized future mobile/wearable devices and unobtrusive sensor nodes. Silicon photonics will be one of key technologies improving the energy efficiency of data centers. For circuit designs, there will be increasing demands on “Interface” circuits to operate with various sensors and energy transducers, and ultra-low-power signal processing and wireless communication ICs, in addition to traditional requirements on high-end processors, memories, and high-data-rate radio ICs. In this talk, recent advances and R&D challenges of More-than-Moore technologies will be presented in the context of future mobile society.