Over 4,000 visitors from around the world descended on the Santa Clara Convention Center for the 14th annual TechCon Conference. TechCon is designed to showcase the latest advances in world-class architecture – from silicon design to software development. Research is key to these advances, and so during the Conference, members of the Arm Research Group gave some fascinating insights into the direction of the Group’s research.
In the Conference’s opening keynote, ‘There is Lots More to Come’, Mike Muller, Arm Chief Technology Officer, spoke about the importance of trust when considering the scaling of the Internet of Things (IoT). Mike discussed how Arm’s new Platform Security Architecture (PSA) tackles future security challenges in this fast-moving, connected era. TechCon also saw the launch of Arm’s IoT Security Manifesto; which describes the increasing threat to the data-driven world, and the steps we can, and should, follow to mitigate that risk. Security is a key concern for our Research teams, and Milosch Meriac, Arm Principal Security Research Lead, outlined the holistic approach to security needed in his article ‘Clean Bill of Health: How Immune Systems and Health Services Will Enable Internet of Things Security at Scale’. Read Milosh’s article and the rest of the Arm Security Manifesto by submitting a download request.
As well as security considerations, there are a number of other challenges that we face as we move further into a new technology era. Opening the final day of the Conference, Arm Research Fellow Greg Yeric discussed the technological and material challenges that the industry must confront as we push past 10nm into the ultra-deep submicron realm, in his talk ‘Process Technology Limbo’. With a number of reflections from a wide spanning range of technology areas, Greg asked whether we’re defining ‘limbo’ as a place where we’re stuck, or a place which we’re just passing through.
It was a Research-led morning as Rob Aitken, fellow Arm Research Fellow, asked in his keynote talk whether it’s actually possible for us to build a trillion connected IoT devices in the coming years. Beyond exploring just how big a number that trillion is, in his talk ‘How to Build and Connect a Trillion Things’, Rob had some surprising answers to whether there are enough materials, capacity and engineering resources available to achieve the vision outlined by Masayoshi Son at TechCon 2016.
TechCon 2017 was a fantastic opportunity to further explore the challenges facing research in our industry, with these and other enlightening talks evoking many interesting conversations throughout the Conference. Visit the Arm YouTube channel to catch up on more talks from the event!
If you liked what you heard at TechCon, why not join Arm Research for the Arm Research Summit? Taking place in Cambridge, UK in September 2018, this academic summit offers a unique forum for peer review, debate, and discussion on the latest computing technologies. Find out more and save the date for 2018 here!
Arm Research Summit 2018