Results and Features

  1. The research team has developed a series of scalable switch architectures and related theory for fiber optics. Current high speed switches are based on conflict resolution of input buffers. On the contrary, the architectures developed by this team show that 100% throughput can be achieved without conflict resolution, thanks to the two great mathematicians G. Birkhoff and J. von Neumann. As such, they can be used for building switches at much higher speed. Professor Nick McKeown at Stanford University cited in his INFOCOM 2002 paper that the result of this team has made a big leap for high-performance and high-rate switches. One of their architectures is used by the research team at Stanford University to design their 100 terabits/sec optical router. Likewise, Professor Jonathan Chao of Polytecnic University cited in his paper that the result has opened a new research direction for high-speed switching. This research team’s switch architectures are also taught in regular classes by several universities, including Stanford University, University of Texas, Austin, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In particular, its switch IC design received the first prize of the Golden Silicon Award in 2006. Moreover, the achievement of this team was selected as one of the top 50 scientific achievements by the NSC in 2008.
  2. The research team has developed two wireless sensor platforms, Octopus II and Octopus X, both of which conform to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard and the Zigbee protocol. Octopus II and Octopus X not only have been technology transferred to industry, but also have been recruited by NSC as the platforms for the “Research for Innovative Integration and Applications of Wireless Sensor Networks Technologies”program. Over 20 research teams, including NTHU, NTU, NCTU, NCKU, and NCU, have used Octopus II and Octopus X for various applications such as intelligence home, air-quality monitor, early warning of natural disaster, and biological research of oriental fruit flies. This research team has also developed the smallest platform in the world, “Eco,” that is not only applied in Taiwan but also used as a wireless sensor platform by international research teams such as UC Irvine, USA and University of Zaragoza, Spain. In the area of cloud computing, this team has been collaborating with MediaTek and ITRI for the development of the first KVM based hypervisor for ARM V6 processor in the world and the first multi-threaded QEMU in the world for cloud-enabled embedded devices. This research team holds the highest research potential in Taiwan in the field of wireless communications and sensor networks, and is very competitive in the world. This research team has the highest research potential in Taiwan in the fields of wireless communications and sensor networks, and is very competitive in the world.
  3. The research team has developed advanced cooperative/distributed beamforming schemes, which can provide physical layer secrecy, channel capacity and QoS guarantee in MIMO communication systems. The developed low-complexity low-power multi-user MIMO-OFDM system-on-chip platform has won the 2009 DAC/ISSCC student design contest and 2010 ASP-DAC university LSI design contest. The developed techniques have been transferred to industry and presented in the NTP and NSOC Technology Transfer workshop. The team has also developed the smallest LDPC coder/decoder conforming to WiMAX specification, the first Space-Time-Trellis-Code decoder chip, and an ultra-low-power FFT processing chip. These designs are integrated in a transmission system platform for the super high-definition television, which has won the excellent award of NSOC project.
  4. In the area of chip design, this research team has accomplished many research achievements. Two of the most distinguished results- H.264 decoder and crypto processors- have been technology transferred to many companies. Currently, the research focus is on 3D IC. Our research collaboration with ITRI and the Global Unichip Corp. has been and will continue to be a model of cooperation between academia and industry. In the area of chip testing, our wireless testing platform has been the leading-edge technology in the world. The platform is estimated to reduce the testing cost to one tenth of the current technology’s cost.