“Engineered Electromagnetic Interconnects for Emerging System Capabilities ”
Date/time: Wed, May 28, 2026 (5:00 PM-6:30 PM)
SPEAKER: Dr. Soumitra R. Joy
University of North Carolina
ABSTRACT:
Interconnects have always had one job: moving signals from A to B. This talk argues they can do far more. What if an interconnect could use a chip's own waste heat to automatically increase its bandwidth? What if a passive circuit could reroute signals through random paths — and yet reconstruct them perfectly, with no active control? What if a conducting wire could be folded and unfolded many times — and never break? All of this becomes possible when we stop treating interconnects as fixed infrastructure — and rebuild them with purpose. The reach is pervasive. Engineered Electromagnetic interconnects could help solve some of the hardest open problems in AI data center efficiency, deployable robotics, and hardware security.
This talk presents concrete examples of passive interconnect structures that go far beyond signal transport — and make the case that this is an underexplored frontier for the future of electronic and communication systems.
BIOGRAPHY:
Soumitra R. Joy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Prior to joining academia, he worked at Intel Corporation on semiconductor device reliability and transistor pathfinding for advanced GaN technologies. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where his research focused on electromagnetic interconnects for next-generation electronic systems. His current research explores unconventional passive electromagnetic structures that enable new system-level functionalities in communication, computing, and deployable electronic platforms.
Dr. Joy is the author of the research monograph, titled “Artificial Plasmonics for VLSI Interconnects: Bridging the Gap between Electronics and Optics”, published by Wiley-IEEE Press. In 2026, he received UNC Charlotte’s Best Invention of the Year award for his work on mechanically deployable electromagnetic interconnect structures
LOCATION:
Univ. of Central Florida
HEC-101
Organizers:
Zahid Hasan, Prof. Xun Gong, and Prof. Raj Mittra (407)-450-9334,
zahid.hasan@ucf.edu