Taste of Tech: Training Virtual Security Verification Engineers for System-on-Chip Security Assurance | The Revitalization of US Semiconductor Device and Supply Chain Manufacturing – Progress and Ongoing Challenges
Time and Date
10/19/2026
11:45 AM – 1:45 PM (EST)
Agenda
Lunch: 11:45 – 12:00 | Talk 1: 12:00 – 12:20 | Talk 2: 12:20 – 12:40 |
This semester is proudly sponsored by
Talk 1: Training Virtual Security Verification Engineers for System-on-Chip Security Assurance
Presentation Overview: Security verification of modern System-on-Chips (SoCs) requires engineers to perform a wide range of complex tasks, including identifying security-critical assets, modeling treats, developing security properties, generating testbenches and analyzing verification results. These activities demand significant expertise and engineering effort, creating a major bottleneck in achieving comprehensive security assurance. We present a framework for training AI-powered virtual security verification engineers that collaborate to accelerate SoC security verification. Each virtual engineer specializes in a particular verification task, such as threat modeling, asset identification, property generation, test development or verification analysis, while collectively orchestrating industrial EDA tools including simulators and formal verification engines. By combining domain-specific knowledge, retrieval-augmented reasoning and autonomous tool interaction, these virtual engineers reduce manual effort, improve verification coverage and significantly accelerate verification closure.
Dr. Farimah Farahmandi
About the Speaker
Dr. Farimah Farahmandi is the Walden Rhines Endowed Professor in Hardware Security in the ECE department at the University of Florida. She also serves as the Director of the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity (FICS) at UF. Her research focuses on hardware security verification, formal methods and fault-injection attack analysis resulting in 8 books and over 150 publications in these fields. For her contributions, she is a recipient of 11 best paper and nomination awards and was recognized with the Best Assistant Professor Award at UF (2024), Pramod Khargonekar Excellence Award for the Best Assistant Professor going through tenure process (2025), UF 40 Under 40 Gator Outstanding Alumni Award, the ECE Excellence in Service Award (2023) and the ECE Excellence in Research Award (2022) at UF. She also received the prestigious ACM/IEEE DAC Under 40 Innovators Award (2024), Young Faculty Award from SRC (2022), the NSF CAREER Award (2024) and Office of Naval Research Young Investigator (YIP) Award (2026).
Talk 2: The Revitalization of US Semiconductor Device and Supply Chain Manufacturing – Progress and Ongoing Challenges
Presentation Overview: This seminar will give an overview of initiatives driven from the public and private sectors to re-establish US semiconductor device manufacturing and the corresponding supply chain ecosystem. Projects to modernize, expand or build new manufacturing capacity in the US and to return manufacturing to the US that has been offshored over the past few decades will be presented. Remaining gaps and challenges to US economic and national security in semiconductor technology will also be discussed.
Dr. John Pellerin
About the Speaker
Dr. John Pellerin has served in R&D, engineering, technical leadership and executive-level roles in academia and the semiconductor industry for over 30 years. From 2023 to 2026, he served as the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Portfolio Management Officer for the U.S. Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Program Office responsible for the deployment and management of $39B in awards for the resurgence of semiconductor device manufacturing and supply chain companies in the US. Prior to these roles, Dr. Pellerin was a Vice President of Technology Development and Deputy Chief Technology Officer of GlobalFoundries from 2015 through 2023 leading semiconductor technology development programs across the globe. From 2009 through 2015, he was a member of the GlobalFoundries team responsible for building and launching its newest semiconductor manufacturing facility in NY and led the teams responsible for the technology transfer, development and manufacturing ramp of foundry technologies offered by GlobalFoundries to its customers. Prior to 2009, he held various engineering and technical leadership roles at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) including AMD’s technology development partnerships with IBM, UMC and Motorola. Dr. Pellerin earned his Doctorate degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a Master’s degree from N. Carolina State University, and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida all in Materials Science and Engineering with emphasis on materials and processing technologies for semiconductor device fabrication.