ESE 6800-002 – Hardware Security

Instructor: Professor DeHon

Description: Modern computing devices and infrastructure manage and mediate critical systems and important information.  How do we assure that these systems are available when we need them, are used only as intended, and only allow changes and disclosure of data as intended? Contemporary evidence demonstrates that this is quite hard and few systems provide adequate protection against misuse.  The root of many of these vulnerabilities, as well as many potential solutions to address them, lie in the design of the hardware that supports the systems.  In this seminar, we review attacks and vulnerabilities and various attempts and techniques to address them.  We lay the groundwork to go beyond reactive responses and explore how we can systematically address security from the hardware up.  We’ll review traditional challenges (e.g. buffer overflow, control flow hijacking), information leakage (e.g. timing, power consumption, RF emissions), emerging side-channel leakage (e.g. SPECTRE/Meltdown), and physical attacks (e.g., RowHammer, power, cryo) as well as well as various approaches to address them (e.g., Virtual Memory, Virtual Machines, capabilities, tagging, obfuscation, encryption).  Concerns and solutions will include processor design, as well as custom hardware, networking, systems, and SoCs. 

This offering will be a seminar-style course focused around reading and discussion of key papers from the literature. Students will be expected to read, discuss, and critique papers. There will be a final, research-oriented project on a topic related to hardware security.

Prerequisite: CIS 2400
Recommended: (CIS 4710 or CIS 5710) and (CIS 3800 or CIS 5480)

There are currently no ESE Special Topic courses available for Fall 2024.

ESE 6800-001 – Creating New Ventures with Emerging Technologies

Instructor: Professor Macwan and Professor Snyder

Description: This course explores key emerging technology areas, such as Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, AR/VR, Drones, Security/Blockchain, 3D Printing, and 5G Wireless Networks, and provides frameworks and examples for creating new applications and ventures based on these technologies. Topics include: steps for evaluating, developing, validating, and launching new ventures based on emerging technologies; and instruction on how to create and deliver compelling business plans and venture pitches. Students apply knowledge from the course in a group project focused on designing a potential application and pitching a venture that would leverage the emerging technologies covered in the course.

ESE 6800-003 – Memory Devices and Circuit Design

Instructor: Professor Radway

Description: Computing system performance and energy efficiency is heavily dependent upon memory subsystem characteristics. This course introduces students to various semiconductor memories including: (1) Ubiquitous technologies such as static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), and Flash. (2) Emerging and recently commercialized non-volatile memories built using resistive (RRAMs), conductive bridge (CBRAM), phase change (PCRAM), magnetoresistive (MRAM), and ferroelectric (FRAM) devices. (3) Other memory devices including ferroelectric transistors (FeFET) and volatile gain cells (GC). The course will cover memory design considerations, including basic device and array operation, device/array co-design considerations, scaling and fabrication, memory array circuit design for addressing and readout, and system-level memory optimizations. The course will also give an overview of recent progress in memory-centric design (such as near- and in-memory computing) using these technologies, with a focus on machine learning applications. 

Prerequisite: ESE 3700 or ESE 5700
Recommended: ESE 2180 and ESE 5720

ESE 6800-004 – Real-World Robot Learning

Instructor: Professor Loquercio

Description: Decision-making has been a cornerstone of artificial intelligence since the field’s inception in the 1960s. While the techniques and algorithms have evolved dramatically over time, the fundamental challenge remains: how to make intelligent decisions in the presence of uncertainty. Over the past six decades, this research has led to the development of highly advanced systems, with some achieving superhuman performance in cognitively demanding tasks like Go, Atari, Gran Turismo, Chess, StarCraft, and SOTA.

However, despite these remarkable successes, most of these systems excel only in controlled, simulated, or game-based environments. Why haven’t the same methods translated seamlessly to real-world decision-making, such as controlling a physical robot to perform household tasks? What makes real-world environments so uniquely challenging? And what recent advances are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in real-world applications?

This course offers a structured framework to explore these questions. We will study techniques for learning-based decision-making, such as imitation learning and reinforcement learning, focusing on their practical challenges when applied in real-world scenarios. Through a combination of lectures, hands-on projects, and guest presentations from leading experts in the field, students will gain a deep understanding of the state-of-the-art decision-making systems and their challenges when applied to robotics.

Prerequisites: This is a graduate-level course. Students are expected to have prior knowledge in deep learning and robotics, such as the topics covered in Robot Learning (ESE 650), Principles of Deep Learning (ESE 546), Applied Machine Learning (CIS 5190), and Introduction to Robotics (MEAM-520).

ESE 6800-001 – Creating New Ventures with Emerging Technologies

Instructor: Professor Macwan and Professor Snyder

Description: This course explores key emerging technology areas, such as Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, AR/VR, Drones, Security/Blockchain, 3D Printing, and 5G Wireless Networks, and provides frameworks and examples for creating new applications and ventures based on these technologies. Topics include: steps for evaluating, developing, validating, and launching new ventures based on emerging technologies; and instruction on how to create and deliver compelling business plans and venture pitches. Students apply knowledge from the course in a group project focused on designing a potential application and pitching a venture that would leverage the emerging technologies covered in the course.