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Title: KAIST Prof. Sung-Yool Choi recognized with the Prime Minister’s Commendation Award for Industrial Contribution in 2021

KAIST EE Professor Yoon, Young-Gyu’s team won the MICCAI Young Scientist Award

[(From left) Professor  Yoon, Young-Gyu, Changyeop Shin, Hyun Ryu, Eun-Seo Cho]

Prof. Yoon, Young-Gyu ‘s team from the School of Electrical Engineering has been selected as the recipient of the Young Scientist Award from the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), 2021.

The Young Scientist Award is an award given to the most excellent paper published at the MICCAI conference, a renowned international academic conference in the field of medical image processing, written by a lead author who is either a student or within two years of receiving a doctorate. This is the first time in Korea to receive this award.

Changyeop Shin (current M.S. student) and Hyun Ryu (current B.S. student) are co-lead authors, and Eun-Seo Cho (current Ph.D. student) is co-author, the following paper won the award: “RLP-Net: A Recursive Light Propagation Network for 3-D Virtual Refocusing,” International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), 2021.

This paper is about a virtual refocusing technique that restores a three-dimensional image using only two microscope images. The research has shown that accurate virtual refocusing is possible by approximating the light propagation function using a recursive neural network, paying attention to the fact that the light propagation process has spatial invariance.

The award ceremony was held at the 2021 MICCAI Conference, which was held virtually due to the COVID-19 situation. The list of winners will be permanently posted on the MICCAI conference website.

Brain-Inspired Highly Scalable Neuromorphic Hardware Presented

KAIST EE research team fabricated a brain-inspired highly scalable neuromorphic hardware by co-integrating single transistor neurons and synapses. Using standard silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology, the neuromorphic hardware is expected to reduce chip cost and simplify fabrication procedures.

The research team led by Prof. Choi, Yang-Kyu  and  Prof. Choi, Sung-Yool produced a neurons and synapses based on single transistor for highly scalable neuromorphic hardware and showed the ability to recognize text and face images. This research was featured in Science Advances on August 4. (Co-integration of single transistor neurons and synapses by nanoscale CMOS fabrication for highly scalable neuromorphic hardware)

To solve the problems, the research team mimicked the behavior of biological neurons and synapses with a single transistor, and co-integrated them onto an 8-inch wafer. The manufactured neuromorphic transistors have the same structure as the transistors for memory and logic that are currently mass-produced. In addition, the neuromorphic transistors proved for the first time that they can be implemented with a ‘Janus structure’ that functions as both neuron and synapse, just like coins have heads and tails.

Based on the manufactured neuromorphic transistors, the research team mimicked some brain functions such as gain modulation and simultaneous detection, and showed that it is possible to recognize text images and face images.

The neuromorphic semiconductor developed by the research team is expected to contribute to accelerate the commercialization of neuromorphic hardware.

Links are provided below for more detailed information.

[Link]

https://news.kbs.co.kr/news/view.do?ncd=5249804&ref=A (KBS News)

https://science.ytn.co.kr/program/program_view.php?s_mcd=0082&s_hcd=&key=202108051614409475 (YTN Science News)

https://www.etnews.com/20210805000099(ET News)

[EE research team/ Prof. Choi, Yang-Kyu /Choi, Sung-Yool, Phd Han, Junk-Kyu/Oh,Jungyeop] 

EE Professor. Jun-Bo Yoon’s lab from the School of Electrical Engineering KAIST selected as the healthy lab of the year by the National Research Foundation

The selection of healthy lab of the year, which marks its second anniversary this year, aims to discover, encourage, and spread a healthy culture by finding excellent examples of science and technology labs in Korea to create a desirable graduate laboratory culture and establish research ethics. The National Research foundation selected 3DMNSL Lab for its unique and good cultures that are in line with the purpose of the project after Kim Bum Joon applied. The lab received an award from the Minister of Science and ICT, a certified signboard, a logo, and 10 million KRW.

3D Micro-Nano Structures Laboratory received the award for its distinctive culture, horizontal and respectful culture, and good research performance.

1) Graduate students rather than the professor selects the new students (Graduate students spend more time together)

2) Continous efforts are made to maintain a good culture and improve the weakness through professor evaluation and lab evaluation (The graduate students 

    anonymously evaluated the professor and the lab)
3) Encourage students to focus on research by improving student welfare
4) Establishing a system to refer to all materials of graduates and students through an FTP server

Professor. Jun-Bo Yoon created the course Technical Writing to help graduate students in various fields including writing effective thesis papers, research ethics since 2005. The course introduces a good example of an ideal life in graduate schools and is evaluated to be a mandatory course for its great message. Professor Yoon commented that “I was also asked whether the students were also actually healthy.” The professor also added, “I hope that other excellent labs can also apply through this opportunity.”

Professor. Junhyuk Kang, chair of School of EE, commented that he is happy that professor Yoon’s lab was selected among the 10 healthy labs selected and praised Professor Yoon and his students for introducing an exemplary culture to the entire department.