IEEE Computer Society
Multiple-Valued Logic Technical Committee
ISMVL-2004
Round Table Discussion Report
May 21, 2004
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada
Moderator: D. Michael Miller, University of Victoria, Canada
Panelists (in order of the presentations):
- Tsutomu Sasao, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan
- Claudio Moraga, University of Dortmund, Germany
- Grant Pogosyan, International Christian University, Japan
- Zvonko Vranesic, University of Toronto, Canada
- Takao Waho, Sophia University, Japan
- Marek Perkowski, Portland State University, USA
The round table discussion was held from 2:00 - 3:25 p.m. on Friday May 21 as a session at the 2004 International Symposium on Multiple-Valued Logic (ISMVL) held at the University of Toronto.
The moderator opened the session by noting the following questions:
- What have we accomplished in the last 33 years?
- What challenges do we face?
- What are our opportunities?
- How to promote MVL and make it a more significant player in a 'binary' world?
- What are the emerging areas for MVL research?
- What are the key directions for the MVL-TC?
The panelists each gave a short address on their views with time for discussion after each pair.
Prof. T. Sasao gave an overview of what has been accomplished in MVL logic synthesis and future problems and directions in that area.
Prof. Claudio Morage gave a perspective on MVL research based on his long standing involvement with the MVL symposium since its inception in 1971. He note d the advantage of the diversity of research and researchers that fall under the MVL umbrella.
Prof. Grant Pogosyan asked if ISMVL is in fact too broad and speculated what could be done to encourage more collaboration and cross-over between the theory and practice oriented symposium participants.
Prof. Zvonko Vranesic provided a circuit design perspective based on his involvement since the inception of the NVL sysmposium. He noted the stiff competition of the essentially 'binary' world. However, he foresaw significant impact of MVL due to the increasing dominance of wiring and communication issues as well as the potential benefit of MVL in arithmetic applications.
Prof. Tako Waho concentrated on issues in emerging technologies, resonant tunneling diodes (RTD) in particular. He indicated there was significant potential for impact of such technologies and for development of MVL techniques to deal with them.
Prof. Marek Perkowski further developed the theme of emerging technologies with particular emphasis on quantum computing and quantum device. He also noted the breadth of MVL application citing: machine learning, data mining and robotics as examples of application areas. Prof. Perkowski conclude his presentation by noting he views the MVL community as composed of three groupings: theoreticians and circuit designers bridged by those involved in logic synthesis.
Not surprisingly a relatively short period for presentations and discussion left more questions than answers. The moderator noted the following as some key questions for the TC and its members to consider and possibly address:
-
Is the scope of ISMVL too broad?
-
How to promote more cross-over amongst sub-areas of MVL? It was suggested that tutorials both in conjunction with ISMVL and elsewhere should be promoted.
-
How to attract new participants, partuclalrly new participants at the beginning of their research careers?
-
How many of us teach courses in MVL?
-
How can we share course / learning materials? It was suggested that paper presentation materials and course related materials should be made available as resources for the general MVL community using the web.
-
Will MVL ever beat or even compete with binary? What is the potential in terms of wiring complexity, arithmetic applications, MVL signal processing?
-
Which applications can best make use of emerging technologies?
-
Which will be the successful emerging technologies? Single electron devices, RTD, quantum, nanotechnology...
Prof. Glen Gulak noted his concern over what he saw as a somewhat negative view in some comments that had been made. He commented that MVL technology is having a significant impact in some key areas citing memory and communications in particular.
The moderator concluded with the observation:
We need to make MVL more than a once a year event.