Luca Carloni

Heterogeneity is the key to both high performance and energy efficiency. Examples of heterogeneous computing platforms range from the systems-on-chip that are at the core of smartphones and automotive electronics to the high-performance servers that empower the data centers in the cloud. 

Carloni has made research contributions across all main aspects of engineering these computing platforms, including system architecture, hardware design, software programming, networking, power management, rapid prototyping, system-level design methodologies, and computer-aided design (CAD) tools.

Most recently, Carloni has proposed and developed Embedded Scalable Platforms (ESP) as a novel approach to help engineering teams cope with the complexity challenges of designing and programming billion-transistor system-on-chip architectures, which integrate an increasing number of general-purpose processor cores and specialized hardware accelerators.  ESP combines an architecture and a methodology. The flexible socketed architecture simplifies the integration of heterogeneous components by balancing regularity and specialization and eases the realization of prototypes with Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) technologies. The companion methodology improves the productivity and collaboration among software programmers and hardware engineers, by raising the level of abstraction to system-level design, promoting the use of high-level synthesis, and enabling the reuse of predesigned components. ESP's capabilities have allowed a small team of mostly graduate students to realize two SoCs of growing complexity, each in the span of just a few months. Carloni’s research has informed his teaching activities at Columbia, particularly with the development of the two new courses “System-on-Chip Platforms” and “Embedded Scalable Platforms.”

Carloni received a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy in 1995, an MS in Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997, and a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2004. In 2004, he joined the faculty of Columbia Engineering. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Research Areas

• Computer Architecture and Engineering
• System-on-Chip
• Heterogeneous Computing
• Embedded Systems
• Open-Source Hardware
• Design Automation