European Commission logo
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Ferroelectric Vertical Low energy Low latency low volume Modules fOr Neural network Transformers In 3D

Project description

New technology for optimal machine translation

An innovative, inclusive and sustainable society is a European priority. For many people, inclusiveness and sustainability rely on a speech-to-speech translation obtained through a lightweight in-ear Internet of Things-based device dependent on internet connectivity. However, although machine translation has significantly improved, the use of such devices is prevented by the computation-intensive and energy-consuming artificial neural networks that need server-based implementations. What’s more, data protection and privacy concerns are on the rise. Ferroelectric vertical nanowire field-effect transistors (VNWFETs) are a solution. Through the actual fabrication of VNWFETs, the EU-funded FVLLMONTI project will develop regular 3D stacked hardware layers of neural networks based on fine-grain hardware and software co-optimisation allowing the most efficient machine translation.

Objective

"In the context of the fourth industrial revolution along with unprecedented growing global interdependencies, an innovative, inclusive and sustainable society is a sound European priority. For many people, the way towards inclusive and sustainable daily life goes through a lightweight in-ear device allowing speech-to-speech translation. Today, such IoT devices require internet connectivity which is proven to be energy inefficient. While machine translation has greatly improved, an embedded lightweight energy-efficient hardware remains elusive because existing solutions based on artificial neural networks (NNs) are computation-intensive and energy-hungry requiring server-based implementations, which also raises data protection and privacy concerns. Today, 2D electronic architectures suffer from ""unscalable"" interconnects, making it difficult for them to compete with biological neural systems in terms of real-time information-processing capabilities with comparable energy consumption. Recent advances in materials science, device technology and synaptic architectures have the potential to fill this gap with novel disruptive technologies that go beyond conventional CMOS technology. A promising solution comes from vertical nanowire field-effect transistors (VNWFETs) to unlock the full potential of truly 3D neuromorphic computing performance and density. Through actual VNWFETs fabrication setting up a design-technology co-optimization approach, the FVLLMONTI vision is to develop regular 3D stacked hardware layers of NNs empowering the most efficient machine translation thanks to a fine-grain hardware / software co-optimisation. FVLLMONTI consortium is a strong partnership with complementary expertise and extensive track-records in the fields of nanoelectronics, unconventional logic design, reliability, system‐level design, machine translation, cognition sciences. The consortium is composed of 50% of junior researchers and 90% of first-time participants to FETPROACT."

Call for proposal

H2020-FETPROACT-2018-2020

See other projects for this call

Sub call

H2020-FETPROACT-2020-01

Coordinator

UNIVERSITE DE BORDEAUX
Net EU contribution
€ 911 231,25
Address
PLACE PEY BERLAND 35
33000 Bordeaux
France

See on map

Region
Nouvelle-Aquitaine Aquitaine Gironde
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost
€ 924 731,25

Participants (7)