Prof. Maciej Ogorzałek from the JU Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science is one of the two winners of the Foundation for Polish Science sabbatical fellowship. It will allow him to spend six months at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where he will work on a research project entitled ‘Gaudi chips’ – Innovative design concepts for 3D integrated nano-electronic systems.

The Foundation for Polish Science sabbatical fellowships are an additional opportunity for the winners of the MASTER programme. They allow their recipients to choose a leading research centre in which they would like to conduct a scientific project within the span of 3–6 months. Every submission is independently assessed by 3 international reviewers. Aside from the project itself, the reviewers also took into account the applicant’s overall activity in the past 5 years as well as the reputation of their chosen research centre.

The aim of this project is to exploit new innovative approaches not considered so far for integrated circuit design. We coin the term ‘Gaudi circuits’ referring to the geometric shapes and compositions breaking current established rules of Manhattan-like placement and routing rules. One such approach relies on creation of building blocks having even very strange shapes and structures - their interconnects and packaging can be envisaged thanks to developments in additive fabrication, often referred to as 3D printing.  Additive fabrication and 3D printing are thought of as synonymous but additive fabrication encompasses a far broader range of construction inspiring innovation across scales and applications. The proof of concept for additive fabrication at nanoscale has been already demonstrated.

Prof. Maciej Ogorzałek is the head of the Cluster of Departments of Applied Computer Science at the JU Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science. He is recognised as a world-class specialist in signal processing in biology and medicine, the dynamics of nonlinear system and chaos dynamics, and designing cutting edge 3D microelectronic chips for heterogeneous technologies. He has delivered lectures and conducted research in laboratories around the world, including Electronics Research Laboratory University of California Berkeley, RIKEN, Kyoto University, Waseda University, EPFL Switzerland, Centro Nacional de Microelectronica, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He was the editor of many international journals, and the author and co-author of over 340 publications, including the book Chaos and Complexity in Nonlinear Electronic Circuits. In 2016–2017, he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. In 2012, he became a member of the Academic Europaea, and in 2016 – the Polish Academy of Sciences.