Team AER, composed of students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University, won first place overall in the Agentic FPGA Backend Optimization Competition held at FPL 2026 (Field-Programmable Logic and Applications 2026). The AER team consists of Sookwan Han and Sihun Lim, undergraduate students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University; Jun Sung, a graduate student in the department; and Haeun Ji, a graduate of Kyung Hee University. Professor Jinho Lee of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University served as the team’s advisor. Sponsored by AMD and held as part of FPL 2026, the competition evaluated methods for automatically optimizing FPGA designs using AI agent technology. Participating teams developed systems that analyze given FPGA designs and automate the process of improving their performance. Team AER developed a system that enables AI agents not merely to repeat predetermined tasks, but to explore various optimization strategies independently, compare the results of each strategy, and select the next approach. The team also applied an iterative structure that analyzes execution results and continuously improves the optimization method itself. Through this approach, the team achieved high optimization performance across diverse FPGA designs and took first place overall. This achievement is significant in that it demonstrated the competitiveness of applying AI agent technology, which has recently gained considerable attention, to practical hardware design optimization problems. It also highlights the potential for the convergence of AI and computer system design technologies. In particular, undergrad students Sookwan Han, Sihun Lim, and Haeun Ji are currently preparing to launch a startup. Drawing on their research and development experience in AI and systems, as well as their achievement in this international competition, they plan to pursue the commercialization of AER’s technology. This accomplishment is also meaningful in that the students’ research achievement is expanding beyond academic success into technology entrepreneurship. Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58112 Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr...

The 6th “2026 SNU FastMRI Challenge,” held at Seoul National University for 50 days from July 1 to August 20, concluded successfully, with the winners announced. The FastMRI Challenge is a competition in deep-learning-based image reconstruction technology that seeks to reduce MRI scan times while producing high-quality images. Led by Professor Jong-Ho Lee of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the challenge marked its sixth year in 2026. A total of 271 undergraduate students from 186 teams participated in this year’s competition. Students from diverse majors including electrical and computer engineering, computer science and engineering, biological sciences, and liberal studies took part, demonstrating notable collaboration across disciplinary boundaries. As participation has grown, more students have returned to take on the challenge again in subsequent years or looked forward to it each summer break, establishing the FastMRI Challenge as a representative program at Seoul National University. The event was hosted by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Seoul National University and sponsored by AIRS Medical, KLIM Ventures, SNU Information Technology Services, and the Brain Imaging Center. One notable tradition of the challenge is that award recipients from the previous year return as teaching assistants for the following year’s competition, passing on their experience to new participants. This year, Woojin Lee, a fourth-year student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Seongsu Lee, a fourth-year student in the Department of Physics Education, who both achieved strong results in last year’s competition, participated as teaching assistants and supported the operation of the event. This tradition has created a virtuous cycle in which the award recipients’ experience contributes to the growth of the next generation of participants. Following intense competition for the total prize of KRW 30 million, the team “Suwon Gorani Hunters,” consisting of Seungmin Baek from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Seoyeon Lee from the School of Biological Sciences, won first place and received a prize of KRW 15 million. Both participants drew attention for taking part in the competition while serving in the military. Second place went to the team of Woojin Ahn and Chaewon Im from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Third place was awarded to the team of Jehyeok Choi from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Juwon Seo from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. The teams of Jeongmin Shin and Daehyeop Kim from the College of Liberal Studies and Sehwa Im and Yunsuk Ra from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering placed fourth and fifth, respectively. In a post-competition survey, many participants expressed satisfaction with the program, commenting that the challenge allowed them to make productive use of their summer break and left them with positive memories. Participants also reported high satisfaction with the opportunity to train relatively large models and gain hands-on experience with medical data. One participant noted, “I had previously worked only on one-train, one-inference research, such as 3DGS and PINNs, but it was valuable to have the opportunity to train a relatively large model through this competition.” Another stated, “It was especially valuable to collaborate with colleagues using GPUs, work directly with medical data that is usually difficult to access, and apply concepts learned in major courses to an actual project.” In their acceptance remarks, the first-place team cited the extensive discussions with their teammates and the opportunity to experiment with diverse approaches, even in an environment with limited internet access during military service, as their most meaningful experiences. They also noted that clearly dividing their roles between idea implementation and data analysis greatly helped them conduct experiments efficiently within a limited timeframe. Professor Lee stated, “Whenever I see students working day and night with real-world data during their summer break, I feel a great sense of fulfillment. I hope that the talented individuals who grow through this challenge will lead the future development of AI technology.” Since its first launch in 2021, the SNU FastMRI Challenge has continued for six years and has become a representative summer program for SNU engineering students. With its tradition of award recipients returning as teaching assistants, as well as its provision of hands-on experience with medical imaging data and opportunities to train large models, participation and interest have continued to grow each year. Professor Lee stated that he plans to continue holding competitions in which undergraduate students and researchers participate together, centered on challenging research topics across diverse fields, thereby sustaining a virtuous cycle of talent and technology. Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58100 Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr...

Ph.D. candidates Byeonggeol Lee and Dongju Jang from the Advanced Flexible Electronics Laboratory (AXEL), led by Professor Yongtaek Hong, received the KIDS Award (Silver) at the 26th International Meeting on Information Display (IMID 2026), an international conference organized by the Korean Information Display Society (KIDS). IMID is a leading international conference in the display field, co-organized by KIDS and the Society for Information Display (SID). This year, the conference was held at BEXCO in Busan from August 18 to 21. The research team delivered an oral presentation in the “Free Form Factor Displays: Backplane” session under the title “A Thermally Conductive Hydrogel Heatsink for Sustained Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting from Everyday Heat Sources under Ambient Air Condition.” The study applied thermoelectric energy harvesting technology, which converts thermal energy into electrical energy, to various everyday waste-heat sources. In particular, the team demonstrated a self-powered system that generates electrical energy from heat emitted by laptops and body heat, driving wireless communication devices and LEDs without an external power source. The KIDS Awards, sponsored by both LG Display and Samsung Display, recognize innovation and excellence in display research. Two papers are selected in each of the Gold, Silver, and Bronze categories. The research team received the Silver Award. This research is significant in that it addressed the heat dissipation problem that limited the performance of thermoelectric energy harvesting in the real ambient-air condition, presenting a novel method for effectively recycling various forms of waste heat generated in everyday life. It is expected to be used as a standalone energy source for various low-power electric devices, including wearables and self-powered sensor systems. Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58052 Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr...

Ph.D. candidate Dahyun Kim from the Advanced Flexible Electronics Laboratory (AXEL), led by Professor Yongtaek Hong, received the Best Paper Award (Gold) at the 26th International Meeting on Information Display (IMID 2026), an international conference organized by the Korean Information Display Society (KIDS). IMID is a leading international conference in the display field, co-organized by KIDS and the Society for Information Display (SID). This year, the conference was held at BEXCO in Busan from August 18 to 21. The research team delivered an oral presentation in the Outstanding Students Conference (OSC) session under the title “Transparent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes with Metal Mesh Electrodes Directly Formed on Organic Layers via Area-Selective Thermal Evaporation.” The study directly formed metal-mesh transparent electrodes on organic layers by utilizing the metal-vapor-desorption phenomenon and applied them to transparent organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). Of approximately 950 papers presented at IMID 2026, only four were selected for the Outstanding Students Conference. Following a review by the program committee based on the originality and technical significance of the research, Dahyun Kim was selected as the best presenter among them and received the Gold Award (Best Paper Award Certificate Gold). Meanwhile, the research was featured as the Outside Front Cover in the May 2026 issue of Materials Horizons. Paper Title: High-performance transparent metal mesh electrodes utilizing a metal-vapor-desorption layer for organic light-emitting diode applications DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D5MH02144H Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58051 Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr...

On August 28, 2026, the following students received outstanding graduate thesis awards and were presented with their degree certificates as representative graduates at the 2025 Fall Semester (80th) Graduation Ceremony of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Congratulations to all graduates and award recipients. << Outstanding Graduate Thesis Awards >> < Bio Field Jiye Kim (Advisor: Professor Jongho Lee(B)) > < Semiconductor Field Sung-Ho Park (Advisor: Professor Jong-Ho Lee(S)) > < Electric Energy Field Jonghoon Yoon (Advisor: Professor Seungyong Hahn) > < Electronic Physics Field Jeong Han Song (Advisor: Professor Jeonghun Kwak) < Control Field Chaeeun Hong (Advisor: Professor Kyoung Mu Lee) > < Computer Field Jiho Kim (Advisor: Professor Bohyung Han) < Computer Field Jaeseok Byun (Advisor: Professor Taesup Moon) > < Communications Field Yongwan Kim (Advisor: Professor Jungsuek Oh) > < Communications Field Jihye Kim (Advisor: Professor Seong-Cheol Kim) > < Degree Certificate Presentation > Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58033 Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr...

On August 28, 2026, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering held its 2025 fall semester (80th) graduation ceremony, conferring degrees upon 63 doctoral graduates, 20 master’s graduates, and 63 bachelor’s graduates. The ceremony featured degree conferrals for representative graduates, the presentation of outstanding graduate thesis awards, and the recognition of summa cum laude graduates. Professor Seong-Cheol Kim delivered a message of encouragement and best wishes for the bright future of the graduating class. In particular, the ceremony concluded with graduates and current students singing the graduation song while watching a video made from photographs capturing memories of the graduates’ time at the university. Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58032 Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr...

A paper by researcher Sung-Ho Park from Professor Jong-Ho Lee’s research team in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Seoul National University has been selected as the cover article for the November 2026 issue (issue 61) of Advanced Science (IF: 14.1), a world-renowned scientific journal. This research proposes a novel Triple-Level Content-Addressable Memory (TLCAM) architecture that directly compares the stored data with input data in parallel inside the memory, utilizing eight data states per cell of the commercial three-dimensional NAND flash memory. Compared to the sequential read approach of the conventional NAND flash memory, it increases the read throughput by up to 24 times and reduces the read energy for searching by approximately 98%. As three-dimensional NAND flash memory is a representative nonvolatile memory with high integration density and solid commercial viability, this research is expected to significantly contribute to the advancement of high-performance memory-centric computing technologies for accelerating large-scale data searches and enabling low-power artificial intelligence computation. Paper Title: Triple-Level Content-Addressable Vertical NAND Flash Memory (https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.77390) Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58028 Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr...

(From left) Professor Hak-Rin Kim of Kyungpook National University, Yong-Kuk Yoon, Head of Optronics Korea Business at Merck, and Professor Soo-Yeon Lee of Seoul National University. Professor Soo-Yeon Lee received the Merck Young Scientist Award at the 2026 Merck Awards. The Merck Awards started as a technical paper award established at the International Meeting on Information Display (IMID) in 2004 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Merck’s liquid crystal research and to recognize outstanding scientific achievements in display technologies. In 2006, the awards were expanded to include the Merck Young Scientist Award. Professor Lee, this year’s recipient of the Merck Young Scientist Award, has contributed to the advancement of next generation display and semiconductor technologies through her research on oxide thin film transistor (TFT) devices and related circuit technologies. She has identified the mechanism of the optical reliability and instability of oxide TFTs, developed a novel device structure to suppress the short channel effect, and developed device-degradation modeling along with panel compensation technologies. She has also conducted research on ultra-high-resolution, low-power display driving technologies through the design of OLED and micro-LED pixel circuits. More recently, she has expanded her research into low-power synaptic devices and neuromorphic systems by utilizing the low off-current and multi-level operating characteristics of oxide semiconductors. Professor Lee stated, “This award is a joyful recognition of my efforts so far and a great encouragement to go even further. By gaining a deep understanding of devices and connecting that knowledge to circuits and systems, I hope to produce outcomes that are both academically meaningful and practically useful.” Source: https://ece.snu.ac.kr/ece/news?md=v&bbsidx=58010 Translated by: JungHwan Kim, English Editor of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, onzdavid@snu.ac.kr...