IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Winter 2022 - 77

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IEEE SSCS Partners With IEEE Brain, Announces 2021
SSCS-Brain Best Paper Award Winners
The formation of the Brain Initiative
in 2013 set off an explosion of brainrelated
research and neurotechnology
development with the goals of
improving our understanding of the
brain, treating disease, and improving
the human condition. IEEE Brain
was formed in 2015 to facilitate
cross-disciplinary collaboration and
coordination to advance research,
standardization, and development of
neurotechnologies. As an IEEE-wide
effort, IEEE Brain unites engineering
and computing expertise across IEEE
Societies and Councils relevant to
neuroscience. The initiative also provides
an avenue for IEEE to work with
multiple constituencies in academia,
industry, and government to incubate
and sponsor activities, projects,
and standards that facilitate bringing
neurotechnology to market in an ethical
and responsible manner.
In January 2021, IEEE Brain became
an independent Technical
Community. The following March,
the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society
(SSCS) joined eight other Societies as
financial sponsors of IEEE Brain, including
the following:
■ IEEE Circuits and Systems Society
■ IEEE Computational Intelligence
Society
■ IEEE Computer Society
■ IEEE Electron Devices Society
■ IEEE Engineering in Medicine and
Biology Society
■ IEEE Magnetics Society
■ IEEE Signal Processing Society
■ IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics
Society.
The Societies work collaboratively to
help advance areas such as brain-machine
interfaces (BMIs), bioelectronics,
computational neuroscience, signal
processing, neuromorphic computing,
and neuroethics.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2021.3135587
Date of current version: 24 January 2022
Solid-state circuits have been the
key enablers of medical bionics since
Medtronic founder Earl Bakken created
the first transistorized, wearable
artificial pacemaker, in 1957. The
invention of the transistor enabled
medical devices to become portable,
battery powered, and, ultimately,
implantable. By the late 1960s,
pacemakers were being adapted for
higher-frequency stimulation in the
spinal cord to treat chronic pain [1],
giving rise to the neurostimulator.
Integrated electrodes and amplifiers
for neural recording date back as
early as the 1971 International SolidState
Circuits Conference (ISSCC) [2],
and the past five decades have seen
significant developments toward the
goal of interfacing with the brain
and nervous system, with dozens of
papers published at SSCS conferences
on this topic every year. Today,
solid-state circuits are still driving
innovation in neural interfacing by
enabling the remote powering of
miniaturized implantable devices
[3], replacing lost percepts by targeting
large populations of neurons [4],
and using light to communicate with
individual neurons at high speeds
[5]. The interdisciplinary systemslevel
approach to such work underscores
the necessity of cross-Society
collaboration facilitated by a partnership
with IEEE Brain.
As a financial sponsor of IEEE
Brain, SSCS members can join the
initiative at no additional cost. Simply
add the IEEE Brain Community
membership to the cart and proceed
to checkout. You will enjoy benefits
such as free and discounted IEEE
Brain content and event registrations.
For example, IEEE Brain Community
members have free access
to any one of the 15+ recorded webinars
from the IEEE Brain Webinar
Series. IEEE Brain sponsors several
events and provides a host of resources
to the community, such as
the following:
■ The IEEE Brain Podcast Series and
IEEE Brain Video Series contain
interviews with some of the top
subject matter experts in neurotechnology
research and commercialization.
■
The IEEE Brain Webinar Series provides
a point of learning for engineering
and technology advances
that improve our understanding
of the brain.
■ As a flagship event, the IEEE Brain
Workshop on Advanced Neurotechnologies
offers an interactive
and network platform to encourage
exchanges of ideas with leading
researchers and medical and
industry professionals.
■ IEEE Brain publications include
the " Future Neural Therapeutics "
technology road map white paper
[6] that identifies key challenges
and advances required
for next-generation closed-loop
neurotechnologies and an online
newsletter that features recent
breakthroughs in research.
■ Hackathons are fun, collaborative,
hands-on learning for building
brain-computer interface applications
and performing data
analysis.
■ IEEE Brain also supports activities
to drive commercialization, including
standards development,
a consumer neurotechnology forum,
a neurotech entrepreneurs
work shop, and neur oet h i cs
efforts.
Joint efforts that bring together
IEEE Brain and the SSCS are underway.
The Solid-State Circuits Directions
committee plans to host a
joint SSCS-Brain workshop in 2022
to highlight ongoing work and define
important future directions at
the intersection of the two Societies.
There is also an initiative to define
IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE WINTER 2022
77
IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Winter 2022

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