Principal Investigator

Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur

Associate Professor; Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560012

Adjunct Faculty; International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems, Western Sydney University, Australia

Associated with the following research clusters at IISc:

Brain, Computation, and Data Research Group

Initiative on Quantum Technologies

Artificial Intelligence Group (AI@IISc)

Microelectronics & VLSI Design

Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur (Senior Member, IEEE) received his PhD in neuromorphic engineering at the MARCS Research Institute (Brain, Behaviour and Development), Western Sydney University in 2016 with Prof. André van Schaik‬. He then worked briefly as a research fellow for Defence Science and Technology, Australia. He completed his MTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 2007. Dr. Thakur worked as a research fellow at the Johns Hopkins University with Prof. Ralph Etienne-Cummings and Prof. Ernst Niebur for a year before joining IISc as an Assistant Professor. In addition, Dr. Thakur has extensive industrial experience. He worked for 6 years with Texas Instruments Singapore as a senior Integrated Circuit Design Engineer, designing IPs for mobile processors. He has been trained by world leaders in the field of neuromorphic engineering, and his research expertise lies in neuromorphic computing, mixed-signal VLSI systems, computational neuroscience, probabilistic signal processing, and machine learning. His research interest is to understand the signal processing aspects of the brain and apply those to build novel intelligent systems. He is recipients of several awards such as Young Investigator Award from Pratiksha Trust, Early Career Research Award by Science and Engineering Research Board- India, Inspire Faculty Award by Department of Science and Technology- India.

Editorial board member : Neuromorphic Computing and Engineering (IOP Publishing)

Associate Editor: Frontiers in Neuroscience (Neuromorphic Section)

Scientist/Post-Doctoral Researcher

Dr. S.C.G. Kiruba Daniel is a SERB – National Post Doctoral Fellow of NeuRonICS Lab. He has completed his Ph.D in Nanotechnology from Anna University in the year 2015 and completed his Post-Doc from Instrumentation and Applied Physics Department, IISc in the year 2016. He has been trained by Academia Industry Training (AIT) Camp in EPFL, Switzerland sponsored by Switzerland and Indian Government. He got Gandhian Young technology Innovator Award with his team for his work on melamine sensing from milk in 2017. He led his start-up JK Nanosolutions to win National Level Dev Tech award (2016) from DFID, UK and DST India, Elevate 100 Award (2017) with a grant of 25 Lakhs INR, Tata Social Enterprise Challenge Award (2018) and Titan Design Impact Award (2018) with a grant of 65 lakhs.. He has around 20 publications and 8 patents contributing to 1052 citations (Google Scholar) and h-index of 16. His research interests are in the development of low power and low cost nanotechnology based sensing devices.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-s-c-g-kiruba-daniel-a50a8940/

Kalipatnapu Shantharam is a Research associate in NeuRonICS Lab at IISc. He did his Ph.D from Department of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering of IIT Kharagpur. His research interests include VLSI Architectures for Error Correction Decoders, Signal Processing and Machine learning systems.

Niranjan Raj is a Senior Project Associate/ Post-Doctoral Researcher in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. He received his Ph.D. in Microelectronics and VLSI from the Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad. He did his M.Tech in VLSI design from the National Institute of Technology Meghalaya. His research interests include low-power analog integrated circuit design, memristor emulator circuits, machine learning, acoustic pattern recognizers, and open-source EDA tool flow. He has around 15 publications and has also served as a reviewer in various reputed journals.

PhD Students

A. Lakshmi is a Ph.D. student in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. She graduated in Electronics and Communication Engineering from University of Madras. In the early years of her career, she was working in the signal processing division of Naval Physical and oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), DRDO, Kochi. In NPOL, she has been working in array signal processing. Currently she is working as scientist in Intelligent Systems and Robotics Division (ISRD) in Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR), DRDO. Her research interests include computer vision algorithms which includes image de-blurring, simultaneous localization and mapping, content based image and video retrieval, relevance feedback, pedestrian detection, object detection and anomaly detection.

Pratik Kumar is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), NeuRonICS lab, Bengaluru, India. His work lies at the intersection of hardware-friendly Machine Learning algorithms, High-Performance Machine Learning Computational Architectures (Analog-Mixed Signal hardware), and Emerging Memory devices (for in-Memory/Near memory). As a part of his research, he has designed several novel computational systems for Machine Learning and Edge Computing tasks. Currently, his research aims to tackle the hardware challenges of Machine Learning and Edge Computing through the use of analog technology. He received his Master’s from Indian Institute of Technology, Dhanbad, specializing in Microelectronics and VLSI. He also has an industry experience of 2 Years in TCS Research. His profile can be found on https://sites.google.com/view/pratikkumar

Banhimitra Kundu has an industry experience of 10 years in HAL . He has completed his BTECH in 2008 in ECE from WBUT. Prior to joining IISC as a PhD Student , he has worked in HAL on development of mission computers(Level B) and control computers(Level A)for fixed wing and rotary wing platforms on both software and hardware front . In software ,he has hands on experience in developing of application softwares and device drivers with/without using RTOS.In hardware he has developed hardware for analog sensor conditioning and single board computers using SOC’s.His research interest lies in neuromorphic computing and its hardware implementation.

Prince Philip is PhD student in the Neuronics Lab. Prior to joining Neuronics Lab, he worked in the areas of analog/ digital integrated circuits in academia and industry. He taught UG level courses such as microelectronic circuits, analog and mixed signal IC design, control engineering and electrical circuits. In industry, he designed and developed OFDM based Transceiver Chip and several other circuits for wireless and biomedical applications. In addition, he worked as a consultant for a US based semiconductor company. He graduated in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University. His interests are in neuromorphic engineering, theoretical neuroscience, analog IC design and signal processing

Gitesh Kulkarni, a Senior Scientist from TCS Research joins us as a Ph.D. student. He is an accomplished designer of embedded systems design and a Maker at heart. He has completed his Master of Science in Electrical engineering from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, and a Bachelor of Engineering from Pune University. Gitesh has created embedded systems and systems products for leading technology companies in his career. In one of his pioneering works, he was the lead designer of the world’s first industrial safety watch for the TATA group. His research interests are at the cusp of edge computing, computer architectures, and sensing. He has filed and granted patents in edge computing and wearable devices. Gitesh is a member of IEEE and ACM. When not playing with Linux or a soldering gun, he is busy reading science fictions, comics, and musing about philosophy. He is a licensed Ham radio operator as well.

Ankita Nandi is a Ph.D. student in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. She has completed her B.Tech. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Meghalaya in 2018. She was awarded the prestigious President’s Gold Medal and the Institute Gold Medal for her performance in B.Tech. in 2018. She continued to pursue her education from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar and received her M.Tech. degree in 2020. At IIT Gandhinagar, she was attached with the nanoDC lab, where she explored approximate computing for the design of low energy compute circuits for image processing applications. She is familiar with MATLAB, Verilog, and C languages. Her research enthusiasm lies in the design and implementation of low power circuits using analog, digital, or mixed-mode approaches for neuromorphic systems. Further, she takes a keen interest in low power circuit design techniques for in-memory computing, signal processing, and error correction codes. Her profile can be found on https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankita-nandi-603029191/.

Ketan Sanjay Chaudhari is a Ph.D student in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. He has completed his B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati in 2021. He is familiar with Matlab, Verilog, VHDL and Python coding. His research interests include Digital VLSI design, Neural Networks and hardware implementation of Brain Inspired algorithms.

Madhuvanthi Srivatsav R is a Ph.D. student in the NeuRonICS lab at IISc. She has completed her Btech (Hons) and Mtech in VLSI and Electronics Systems Design from the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design, and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram. She is a GATE rank holder and was awarded the Institute Gold Medal for the All-Rounder of the Graduating Batch at IIITDM, in 2021. At IIITDM, her research work was in the field of Neuromorphic Engineering, and Low-Power VLSI design. In addition, she has worked for a year at SiFive, Bangalore in the domain of Physical Design. Her research interests include Machine Learning, Neuromorphic computing, Analog, and Digital IC design, and hardware implementation of AI.

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madhuvanthi-srivatsav-r-906300155/

Shankaranarayanan H is a PhD Student in the Neuronics Lab at IISc. He completed his B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, and M.Tech in VLSI and Embedded Systems from Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, Pune. During his Bachelor’s, his group received the prestigious TEQIP-III grant for carrying out research towards developing an Autonomous Agricultural Robot. He carried out his Master’s dissertation at the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology, Calicut, where he worked towards the algorithm development for beamforming techniques in Ultrasound Imaging Systems. He’s familiar with MATLAB, Verilog, and C programming languages, and his research interests include Signal Processing, Digital VLSI, and Algorithm Inference on FPGAs.

Pradeep Kumar Gautam has completed his B. Tech in Electronics and Communication engineering from NIT Jaipur. He is working as a Scientist with DRDO. He was part of DRDO’s Processor design center (ANURAG) and is currently working at the Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CAIR). He has worked on Processor design and development involving design of multi-core network processors. His expertise is processor customization and architecture development for embedded applications. Currently he is working on development of hardware implementation of Machine Learning algorithms for fast and energy efficient inference. His research interests are hardware assisted application accelerators, processor architecture and machine learning algorithm inference on FPGAs.

Satyapreet Singh Yadav is a PhD student in the Brain and Artificial Intelligence program at IISc. She has a Master’s degree from IISc and a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication from the National Institute of Technology Calicut, Kerala. She has 8 years of experience in the aerospace and space sector, having worked as a scientist at Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). Her research interests include brain-inspired computing, machine learning, embedded systems, and radar signal processing.

Master Students

Name : Munasala Madhu

I am currently pursuing MTech in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc Bangalore. I completed BTech in 2020 from RGUKT Nuzvid (AP-IIIT) in Electronics and Communication Engineering. My area of interest includes Machine Learning applications and Digital System Design. Currently, I am working on ML-based mmWave radar signal processing project under the guidance of Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur.

I am Surojit Naskar, pursuing M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI at IISc Bangalore. I have completed my B.E. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering at Jadavpur University in 2021. I am also a JBNSTS Senior Scholar. I am interested in Digital Electronics and currently working on high-performance Digital SoC for handheld ultrasound system under Prof. Chetan Singh Thakur.

Ratul Das is currently an M.Tech student of the 2021-2023 batch specializing in Electronic Systems engineering. His area of interest includes Analog IC design and Neuromorphic Computing in the Analog domain. He is currently working on testing the ARYABHAT chip under Prof. Chetan Singh Thakur’s guidance.

LinkedIn Id: https://linkedin.com/in/ratuldas178

Name: Kurupati Sai Pruthvi Teja

Education: M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design at IISc, Bangalore. (2021-2023 & B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering with Mechanical Engineering Minor from National Institute of Technology Rourkela. (2017-2021)

Project: Side-channel analysis on Analog ML Chip.

Interests: Digital and Analog IC Design

Skills: Verilog, MATLAB, and Cadence Tools

LinkedIn Profile : Kurupati Sai Pruthvi Teja | LinkedIn

I am Pratik Prakash Shinde, pursuing MTech in Electronic System Engineering at IISc Bangalore. I completed my BTech in Instrumentation Engineering from College of Engineering Pune (COEP) in 2019. I worked as System Engineer at Emerson Pune for two years. Interested in developing Neuromorphic hardware architecture for machine learning applications.

Rahul Sharma, currently pursuing M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design at IISc Bangalore.He completed his B.tech in Electronics and Communication from M.I.T Bulandshahr. He has industrial work experience in the areas of RF and microwave system design and development for Satellites. He also worked for RF systems for the RADAR Exciter unit for defense systems. Currently, He is employed With U R Rao Satellite Centre, Bangalore (ISRO). He is interested in the design and development of Analog, mixed-signal, and RF systems.

Anand Chauhan, currently pursuing MTech in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc, Bangalore. Graduated from IIT Gandhinagar in 2019 in Electrical engineering. Worked as Junior Research Fellow for 1.5 years at IRACS Lab, IIT Gandhinagar. Interested in the development of Low power Hardware architecture for edge devices, Deep learning, and Computer architecture.

I am Sanket Raghunath Tekawade, pursuing MTech in the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, IISc Bengaluru. Graduated from GEC Aurangabad in 2021 from the Department of Electrical Engineering. Interested in Digital VLSI design and hardware implementation of Brain-Inspired algorithms.

Shreya Suman is pursuing M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design(2021-2023) at IISc Bangalore. She has completed her B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Patna in 2020. She was awarded the President’s Gold Medal and the Institute Gold Medal for her performance in B.Tech in 2020. She is currently working on the project: RISC-V Architecture Design for TinyML applications. Her research interests include Digital System Design and applications of machine learning.

Ayan Saha

Currently pursuing M.Tech in Electronics Systems Engineering at IISc Bangalore. He completed his B.E in Instrumentation and Electronics Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. His interest lies in analog IC design and digital electronics. He is working on testing and configuring the ARYABHAT-1 chip under the guidance of Prof. Chetan Singh Thakur.

Linkedin ID: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayan-saha-5519a21a9

Shalini Reddy is pursuing M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design(2021-2023) at IISc Bangalore. She has completed her B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Osmania University, Telangana in 2021. She is currently working on the construction of LDPC decoder for memories and implementation of the same on the ARYABHAT-1 chip. She is interested in working on the design and development of analog systems.

Nunna Teja Hima Priya is pursuing M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design(2021-2023) at IISc Bangalore. She has completed her B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University(JNTU), Kakinada in 2020. She was awarded a university gold medal from JNTUK for overall topper of the branch.She is currently working on the design of control electronics for quantum computing. She is interested in working on digital system design.

Perika Hima Snehitha is pursuing M.Tech in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc Bangalore. She completed my B. Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at National Institute of Technology Tiruchirapalli. She is interested in Digital Electronics and Digital system design.
Project: VLSI architecture design of Ultrasound Imaging system on FPGA.

Srikanth Nandyala is currently pursuing M.Tech in Electronics Systems Engineering at IISc Bangalore. I completed my B.E in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Andhra University, Visakhapatanam. His interest lies in Digital IC design and Processor architecture. He is currently working on Low Power Machine Learning FPGA/ASIC for Edge Computing under the guidance of Prof. Chetan Singh Thakur.

Vaishnavi Gawade is pursuing MTech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design (2022-2024) at IISc Bangalore. She has completed her BTech in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, Mumbai. She has worked as an Analyst at Deloitte Consulting LLP for a year. She is interested in Digital VLSI design and the development of hardware architecture for edge devices.

I am Soniya S, currently pursuing M. Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design(2022-24) in Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, IISc, Bangalore. I completed my B. Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Pondicherry Engineering College, Puducherry in 2019. I am interested in Digital VLSI Design.

Name : Sudhish Raj G J

I am pursuing M.Tech in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc Bangalore. I completed my B.E in Electronics and Communication Engineering at PSG College of Technology. I am interested in Digital Electronics and Digital system design.

Project : VLSI architecture design of Ultrasound Imaging system on FPGA.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudhish-raj-g-j-776163184

I am siddhu, pursuing MTech in Electronic Systems Engineering at IISc Bangalore. I completed BTech in 2021 from RGUKT Nuzvid (AP-IIIT) in Electronics and Communication Engineering. My area of interest includes Machine Learning applications and Digital System Design and Analog IC Design. Currently, I am working on Low power machine Learning FPGA/ASIC for Edge Computing.

Ashwin Rajesh is an M.Tech student in Microelectronics and VLSI Design (2022-24) at IISc. He completed his B.Tech in ECE from GEC, Thrissur, in 2022, where he worked at the NCRAI lab on sensor fusion and perception for autonomous driving. His interests are in exploring novel hardware architectures, algorithms, and their co-design for efficient edge AI

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/profile/in/ashwinrajesh

Sohan Debnath
Currently pursuing M.Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design (2022-2024) at IISc, Bangalore. Completed B.E. (Hons) in Electronics and Tele-communication Engineering from Jadavpur University in 2022. Qualified JBNSTS Senior Scholarship Test 2018 (Rank 4) and GATE 2022 (AIR 7). Institute Gold Medalist for securing highest marks among all the courses at the B.E. Examination, 2022. Interested in Digital System Design, Stochastic Computation and Neural Network.

Pruthvirajsinh Kiransinh Parmar

Saptarshi Maiti is currently pursuing M. Tech in Microelectronics and VLSI Design at IISc Bangalore. He completed his B.E. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata in 2022. His interest lies in the analog and mixed-signal design domains.

I am Jayanth Reddy, pursuing an MTech in the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, IISc Bengaluru. Graduated from JNTUACEP (Anathapoor) in 2022 from the Department of Electrical Engineering. Interested in Analog VLSI design and working on chip-in-loop training methodology.

I am Mahodhay Reddy, pursuing MTech in MVLSI at IISc Bangalore. I completed my BTech in 2022 from the Central University of Karnataka in Electronics and Communication Engineering. My area of interest includes Machine Learning applications, Digital System Design, and Processor architecture.

I am Laxmi Ojha, pursuing M.Tech in Electronics Product Design in Department of Electronic System Engineering. I completed my B.E in Electrical Engineering from SGSITS, Indore. I am interested in Digital VLSI design.

Nityanand is pursuing MTech Electronic Product Design Student at DESE, IISc Banglore. He graduated from NSUT East Campus in 2022 in Electronics and Communication Engineering. He is interested in Digital and Low Power VLSI.

Research Assistants

Shreyas K has completed his BE in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from SJEC, Mangalore. He is currently working under Dr Chetan Singh Thakur and Mr Haresh Dagale on system design for “Tiny Brain” an ultra-low-power FPGA based cognition machine. He has worked as a System Design Engineer with Fluxgen Engineering Technologies and was an active member of Terrorbull Robotics. He is an enthusiastic Maker who managed Make at CFAL, a makerspace in Mangalore. His interests include electronics design, product prototyping and creative design.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyaskulur/

Vignesh Ramanathan is a research assistant working on the topics of predictive modelling. He has completed his BE in electronics and communication engineering from Sir MVIT in 2015. Post bachelors he worked in the powertrain division of Robert Bosch for 3 years. He has work experience in developing embedded systems, automation systems, computer vision applications, natural language processing, big data analytics, time series analysis. He is also a ISTQB certified test engineer.

Adithya MD is an alumnus of N.M.A.M. Institute of Technology, graduating with a degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering. He has worked as a design engineer in IXE Tronics, developing solutions that bring consistency, dependability, and sustainability to post-harvest crop management. His core competencies are in hardware prototyping and embedded firmware development. Currently, he is working under Dr. Chetan Singh Thakur, developing systems that enable the deployment of machine learning algorithms on constrained hardware.

Research Assistant