Camron Blackburn

camron [dot] blackburn [at] cba [dot] mit [dot] edu

I'm a Research Assistant at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, focusing on energy efficient computing with zeptojoule superconducting devices and asynchronous spatial computing models. I completed my masters degree in September 2021, with a thesis on asynchronous superconducting digital logic that you can check out here. I'm currently in the first year of my PhD.

I am interested in reconfigurable, modular, and distributed computing systems that allow for better physical alignment of hardware with software; leading to improvements in power consumption, while also lowering the barrier for domain-specific hardware design [DICE]. I focus on designing digital logic circuits with superconducting quantum flux parametron (QFP) devices - these reversible switching elements bypass the theoretical Landauer limit on energy dissipation, demonstrating zeptojoule energy loss per bit. However, large scale integration of these devices is difficult due to Josephson junction density limitations on superconducting chips. I aim to develop modular and asynchronous circuit designs that will not only bypass these density limitations, but also lessen the reliance on immature superconducting electronic design automation (EDA) tools by enabling scalable, multi-chip models for custom hardware design.

Before moving to Cambridge, I lived in NYC working at a data science / software engineer for Veritone, where I built hierarchical deep learning model for various AI tasks - mostly applications in computer vision. And prior to that, I received a bachelors in Physics with high honors from NYU while building an optical tractor beam in Professor David Grier's soft matter research group.

Feel free to reach out if we share interests!