Embedded, Integrated and Parallel Ultra-Low Power Electronic Systems (PULP)

The PULP group research focuses on the development of next-generation digital electronics systems either in the form of VLSI System-on-Chips (SoCs) or Embedded Systems (on printed circuit boards), focusing in particular on the Parallel Ultra-Low-Power architectural paradigm, which gives the group its name. The activity of the PULP research group at UNIBO is highly vertical, crossing many layers of the design stack from the development of algorithms and applications, to the definition of novel architectures of programmable cores and dedicated accelerators (and the related software tools), down to the design, verification and tape-out of complex SoCs in advanced technology nodes.

Digital integrated SoCs we design include innovative programmable processors and systems based on the open RISC-V instruction set, as well as dedicated digital hardware accelerators, particularly for artificial intelligence applications, exploiting novel acceleration paradigms. Exploiting these blocks, we design and prototype complete research SoCs for applications such as AI acceleration, safety-critical tasks (e.g., automotive, space), and high-performance computing, as well as IoT and biomedical systems. Our research is not limited to designing innovative SoCs, but also extends into using them for novel applications. We design complete high energy efficiency embedded systems and devices ranging from wearables to miniaturized robots.

Together with the Integrated Systems Laboratory (IIS) at ETH Zürich, the PULP group at university of Bologna is one of the main teams behind the open-source hardware PULP platform https://pulp-platform.org/.

ERC Fields 

• PE7_4 - (Micro- and nano-) systems engineering
• PE6_1 - Computer architecture, embedded systems, operating systems
• PE6_7 - Artificial intelligence, intelligent systems, natural language processing
• PE7_9 - Man-machine interfaces
• PE7_10 - Robotics

Scientific Coordinator: Prof. Luca Benini 

Other people

• Dr. Simone Benatti (UNIMORE)
• Dr. Marco Guermandi (Greenwaves Technologies)
• Andrea Belano (UNIPV)
• Dr Alessio Burrello (POLITO)