Rajit Manohar Named IEEE Fellow
Rajit Manohar, the John C. Malone Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. Less than 0.1% of voting members are selected annually for this member grade elevation. IEEE Fellow is a distinction reserved for select IEEE members whose extraordinary accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest are deemed fitting of this prestigious grade elevation.
IEEE cited Manohar’s “contributions to the design and implementation of asynchronous circuits and systems,” specifically asynchronous circuits for neuromorphic systems, and the design of high-performance field-programmable gate arrays using asynchronous logic.
Manohar joined the Yale faculty in 2017, where his group conducts research on the design, analysis, and implementation of self-timed systems.
His work on high-performance systems includes the design and implementation of the first high-performance asynchronous microprocessor, and the design of a GHz-class asynchronous dataflow field-programmable gate array (FPGA) architecture. His work on fault-tolerant asynchronous systems includes the first radiation-hardened SRAM-based FPGA with self-correcting logic. His work on low power asynchronous systems includes the first event-driven microprocessor optimized for sensor networks, a low power data-driven GPS baseband processor, and low power floating-point arithmetic circuits. His work on the foundations of asynchronous circuits includes theory and methods for verification, synthesis, timing validation, and physical design. Most recently, his group worked closely with IBM research to create the TrueNorth neuromorphic architecture, the first single-chip million neuron system and the first deterministic large-scale neuromorphic architecture. The project received the inaugural Misha Mahowald Prize for neuromorphic engineering, and the TrueNorth chip is now part of the Computer History Museum's collection.
He is the recipient of ten best paper awards, nine teaching awards, and was named to MIT Technology Review's “Top 35 Young Innovators Under 35” for contributions to low power microprocessor design. Prior to Yale, he was Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell. He founded the Computer Systems Lab at both Cornell and Yale. He has served as the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate studies at Cornell Engineering, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Cornell Tech, and the Associate Dean for Research at Cornell Tech. He holds over fifty patents, and co-founded Achronix Semiconductor to commercialize high-performance asynchronous FPGAs.