Integration, Verification, and Optimization of a HyperBus Controller for HyperRAM, SemperFlash, and Chip-to-Chip Interconnect
μVLA is a multi-chip package for low-latency inference of Vision-Language-Action models. The package includes 4 types of chiplets, all connected via HyperBUS:
- Hub SoC: which coordinates the workload;
- Spoke SoC: the actual compute chiplets;
- HyperRAM: DRAM scratchpads for the Spoke SoC;
- SemperFLASH: flash memory stores model weights for fast sequential reads.
Current implementations of HyperBUS controllers are not suitable for our project, as they don’t support SemperFLASH and they use a single clock domain. Our implementation splits the logic and PHY clock domains allowing for fast clocks in our Hub to Spoke SoC communication, and implements SemperFlash support and optimizations, including:
- Burst Chaining: which keeps SemperFLASH asserted during a burst, skipping the CA + Latency phase on every read following the first one;
- Speculative Read: predicts and executes the next burst, hiding the overhead coming from data shuttling within the SoC. With this final optimization we can achieve the 400MB/s full SemperFLASH bandwith.
Nanostructures for Raman Spectroscopy Enabled Wastewater-Based Epidemiology – Stanford Dionne Lab, Summer ’25
Wastewater-Based Epidemiology is a crucial technique for monitoring of viral deseases. Current WBE methods are label-based and rely on genotype information, which makes them unsuitable for bacteria. Previous work proved Raman Spectroscopy + ML classification to be an effective, label-free bacteria detection method. However, detecting low concentrations of bacteria in a backgroundy media like wastewater requires additional techniques:
- Surface Enhancement: the use of nanostructures that resonate with light, enhancing the signal at the wavelengths of interest;
- DEP Enrichment: using Dielectrophoresis, we concentrate bacteria on the detection area to boost their signal.
My work focused on developing a conductive plasmonic metasurface with tunable resonance modes that can enhance Raman signal while acting as a DEP electrode, effectively combining both techniques.