In a remarkable achievement, the team from the Intelligent Systems Laboratory, led by Professor Kyuho Lee from the Department of Electrical Engineering at UNIST, has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Award at the 25th Korea Semiconductor Design Challenge. The team consists of talented students Jueun Jung, Sungbin Kim, Wu Young Jang, Bokyoung Seo, and Sangho Lee.
Organized by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) and the Korea Semiconductor Industry Association (KISIA), the competition aims to cultivate semiconductor design skills and uncover innovative ideas among graduate students. This year, among the 20 awards presented—including one Presidential Award, one Prime Minister’s Award, and four Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Awards—Professor Lee’s team secured the prestigious Prime Minister’s Award for their groundbreaking design of ultra-low-power semiconductors capable of processing spatial information.
This achievement marks the first time a team from UNIST has won the Prime Minister’s Award. The Presidential Award went to a team from Korea University, while teams from KAIST, POSTECH, Seoul National University, and DGIST earned the Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Award.
The semiconductor designed by the research team features a system-on-chip that incorporates spatial data processing capabilities from LIDAR sensor semiconductors. While the LIDAR sensor serves as the eyes of a machine, this innovative semiconductor acts as its brain, efficiently processing extensive spatial data inputs.
Notably, when compared to the Jetson Tx2—a commercial mobile computing platform commonly used in mobile robotics—this design achieves an astounding 99.89% reduction in energy consumption and delivers real-time computational speeds that are up to 54.3 times faster. This innovation has garnered high praise for its creativity, technical feasibility, and overall completeness.
The award ceremony for the 25th Korea Semiconductor Design Challenge took place at COEX, Seoul on October 24, 2024.
