Erik Brunvand

Professor, School of Computing, University of Utah
Adjunct Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University Professor, 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 academic years

Currently on leave (Fall 2019-Fall 2021) at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
I am a Program Director in the CISE/CNS division.

50 S. Central Campus Dr., Rm MEB 3190
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
email: elb at cs dot utah dot edu

For (somewhat) more information, see my plan file (mostly a historical holdover from when
text-based plan files were all the rage in UNIX systems... We're talking '70s and '80s here...)

Professor Brunvand joined the Department of Computer Science in 1990. He has interests in computer architecture and VLSI systems in general, and self-timed and asynchronous systems, and in graphics processing systems in particular. One aspect of his research involves compiling concurrent communicating programs into asynchronous VLSI circuits. The current system allows programs written in a subset of occam, a concurrent message-passing programming language based on CSP, to be automatically compiled into a set of self-timed circuit modules suitable for manufacture as an integrated circuit. He is also interested in investigating the effects of asynchrony on computer systems architecture at a higher level. Most recently he and his students have been exploring a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) architecture that is targeted at Ray Tracing - a rendering technique that can generate highly realistic computer graphics images by simulating the transport of light in the virtual scene.

Academic Details...

Publications through Google Scholar Publications (older)
Patents
Research Grants

Teaching...

I teach courses in computer architecture, digital design, and digital VLSI design.
Computer Science / ECE classes:
- CS/ECE 5710/6710: Digital VLSI Design (most recently Fall 2013)
- CS/ECE 3710: Computer Design Lab (most recently Fall 2010)
- CS/ECE 3700: Fundamentals of Digital Systems (most recently Spring 2012)
- CS/ECE 3992: Computer Engineering pre-project/thesis/clinic (most recently Spring 2014)
- CS/ECE 4710: Computer Engineering Senior Project (most recently Fall 2014)
- CS/ECE 5830/6830: VLSI Architecture (most recently Spring 2011(This course is on hiatus))
- CS/ECE 6712: VLSI Testing (most recently, Spring 2014)
I am also very interested in fine-arts/technology collaborations.
- CS 5789: Embedded Systems and Kinetic Art.This is a cross-college collaborative class on embedded systems and kinetic art that I teach with Paul Stout - a colleague in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Utah. (current class, Spring 2015)
- UGS 2050: Making Noise - Sound Art and Digital Media This is a brand new undergraduate general education course that I've developed as part of my University Professorship in the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 academic years. (current class, Spring 2015)

Kinetic Art and Embedded Systems

I have been interested for some time in arts/technology collaborations. Here are some presentations and other materials that I've written recently.

SIGGRAPH 2015, August 2015 in Los Angeles:
- Kinetic Sculptures: Creating Programmable Art
- Slides for my talk on A Noise-Based Curriculum for Technological Fluency
GLSVLSI 2015, May 2015 in Pittsburgh. I was the banquet Keynote Speaker for the conference. Here are the slides:
- Design Thinking meets Computational Thinking
MicroSystems Education conference (MSE), May 2015. I gave a talk about my class Making Noise: Sound Art and Digital Media
- Technological Fluency through Circuit Bending
Western Michigan University in Kalamzoo, April 2015. I gave a talk and a two-day workshop on Drawing Machines. Here are the slides to the talk:
- Drawing Machines: An Arts and Engineering Collaboration
SIGGRAPH 2014, August 2014 in Vancouver: Drawing Machines Workshop
- Here's the syllabus and step by step guide
- Here's a zip file of all the Arduino programs
From an invited ArtTalk at Snow College in Ephraim, Utah, April 2014
- High-Tech Art: 21st Century Drawing and Printmaking
From the NAEA Conference in 2014 (National Art Education Association)
- Drawing Machines: An Arts and Engineering Collaboration
- Drawing Machines step by step guide and resources list
From Impact8 printmaking conference, August 2013:
- Electrified Printmaking: Using Conductive Ink to Create Active Images
- Automated Drawing: Exploring the Boundaries Between Print and Drawing
From SIGGRAPH 2013, July 2013:
- Lights! Speed! Action! Fundamentals of Physical Computing for Programmers
  - Course Notes for Lights! Speed! Action!
- Arts/Tech Collaboration with Embedded Systems and Kinetic Art
- Slides and notes for a workshop on building an automated drawing machine
From a talk at Newcastle University, U.K. in August 2013
- Design Thinking meets Computational Thinking: Kinetic Art and Embedded Systems
From a talk at Western State Colorado University, Spring 2013
- Arts and Techology: Strange Bedfellows or Congenial Colleagues?

Serpente Rosso
LEDs, plexi plate, wires, and
electronic control
Erik Brunvand, 2012

Asynchronous Circuits Symposia

I was involved (as co-general-chair) in organizing the first International Symposium on Advanced Research in Asynchronous Circuits and Systems (Async94) which was held at the University Park Hotel in Salt Lake City from November 3-5 1994. See the Async94 home page for more details.

Subsequent ASYNC conference have been:

Async96 was held in Aizu, Japan from March 18-21, 1996.
Async97 was held in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, from April 7-10 1997.
Async98 was in San Diego, CA in March 1998 http://paradise.ucsd.edu/async98/
Async99 was in Barcelona, Spain April 19-21, 1999 http://research.ac.upc.edu/conferencies/ASYNC99/
Async00 was in Eilat, Israel April 4-6, 2000 http://www.ee.technion.ac.il/vlsi/async2000/
Async01 was back in Salt Lake City, Utah http://www.async.ece.utah.edu/~async01/
Async02 was in Manchester, U.K., http://intranet.cs.man.ac.uk/apt/async/async2002/
Async03 was in Vancouver, Canada http://research.sun.com/async2003/
Async04 was in Hersonissos, Crete http://www.ics.forth.gr/async2004/
Async05 was in New York City, New York http://vlsi.cornell.edu/async2005/
Async06 was in Grenoble, France http://tima.imag.fr/conferences/ASYNC/
Async07 was in Berkeley, California http://conferences.computer.org/async2007/
Async08 was in Newcastle, U.K. http://async.org.uk/async2008/
Async09 was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina http://asyncsymposium.org/async2009/Home.html
Async10 was in Grenoble, France http://asyncsymposium.org/async2010/Home.html
Async11 was in Ithaca, New York http://asyncsymposium.org/async2011/Home.html
Async12 was in Lyngby, Denmark http://www2.imm.dtu.dk/projects/async_2012/async/Home.html
Async13 was in Santa Monica, California http://ee.usc.edu/async2013/
Async14 was in Potsdam, Germany http://www.async2014.org/
Async15 will be in Mountain View, California http://ee.usc.edu/async2015/

Asynchronous Circuits Tutorial

I gave a tutorial on asynchronous circuits at the 2nd Working Conference on Asynchronous Design Methodologies in London. If you're curious and would like to see the slides, they are available as a PDF file containing the slides, one per page, or in a more compact format as a PDF file with four slides per page.

Computer Folklore

I gave a paper on computer folklore entitled The Heroic Hacker: Legends of the Computer Age at the American Folklore Society annual meeing in Pittsburgh, PA (October 1996). Materials relating to this talk Can be found here

Last modified March 2015.