Luncheon Speakers: Wednesday, April 28th, 2021, 1pm-2pm CT
Title: “AR/VR Applications at Facebook Reality Labs: Silicon Challenges and Research Directions”
Sha Rabii, Vice President, Head of Silicon, Facebook Inc. and
Edith Beigné, Research Director of AR/VR Silicon, Facebook Reality Labs
Abstract: Augmented reality (AR) is a set of technologies that will fundamentally change the way we interact with our environment. It represents a merging of the physical and the digital worlds into a rich, context aware and accessible user interface delivered through a socially acceptable form factor such as eyeglasses. One of the biggest challenges in realizing a comprehensive AR experience are the performance and form factor requiring new custom silicon. Innovations are mandatory to manage power consumption constraints and ensure both adequate battery life and a physically comfortable thermal envelope. This presentation reviews Augmented Reality applications at Facebook and Silicon challenges. We will also discuss current and future Research directions for new architectures, AI, accelerators, memories, new technologies applicable to Augmented Reality.
Speakers’ Biographies:
Dr. Sha Rabii is Vice President and head of silicon development at Facebook where he has established and scaled silicon engineering with a focus on AR and VR products. His team push the frontier on energy efficient computation, artificial intelligence, communication interfaces, imaging, sensing and display technologies. Prior to Facebook he held senior leadership positions at Google where he founded the silicon engineering and the technology engineering groups. His teams delivered the Pixel Visual Core, the Titan Secure Element and manu other components into Google’s consumer hardware products and data centers. Dr. Rabii was founder or member of the founding team at Arda Technologies, Aeluros and Atheros Communications. He earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1998.
Edith Beigné is the Research Director of AR/VR Silicon at Facebook Reality Labs where she leads research projects driving the future of AR devices. Her main research interests are low power digital and mixed-signal circuits and design with emerging technologies. Over the past 20 years, she has been focusing her research on low power and adaptive circuit techniques, exploiting new design techniques and advanced technology nodes for different applications ranging from high performance multi-processors to ultra-low power SoC, and, more recently, AR/VR applications. She is the vice chair of ISSCC 2020 and part of the ISSCC TPC since 2014, chair of the digital circuits sub-committee and was part of VLSI symposium TPC between 2015 and 2020. Distinguished lecturer for the SSCS in 2016/2017, Women-in-Crcuits Committee chair and JSSC Associate Editor since 2018. She visited Stanford University in 2018 to perform research on emerging technologies and new architectures.