UC Riverside: Fully-Funded PhD Openings in AI Hardware/IC Design/VLSI - 2026

The application portal for Fall 2026 is now open at https://www.ece.ucr.edu/graduate-admissions.
The Intelligent Computing Architecture and Nanosystem (ICAN) Group at UC Riverside, directed by Prof. Wantong Li, is recruiting multiple fully funded Ph.D. students for Fall 2026. We explore interdisciplinary research opportunities in integrated circuits, computing hardware, heterogeneous integration, and artificial intelligence. We welcome prospective students to contact us about your interests and qualifications.
Research Directions

• Emerging Computing Paradigms: Memory-centric computing, compute-in-memory, on-sensor computing, stochastic computing
• Integrated Circuit and VLSI Design: Robust IC design, fault-tolerant IC, hardware security, thermal management
• Heterogeneous Integrated Nanosystems: Heterogeneous 3-D systems, stacked memory architecture, 2.5-D chiplets and interposer, BEOL circuits
• SW/HW Co-Design for Embedded AI: Efficient tiny ML, AI for medical systems, neuro-symbolic AI, intelligent data compression

Qualifications
Please feel free to contact us if you have the background and interests in one or more of the following research areas. Extensive experience in at least one of these technical areas is expected.

• Integrated Circuits & VLSI: Analog IC Design, Verilog RTL, Physical Design, Verilog-A/AMS Modeling, Advanced Packaging Design
• Computer Architecture: In/Near-Memory Computing, Memory Systems, Simulator Development, C/C++ Programming
• SW/HW Co-Design for AI: Basic DNN Theory, ML Framework (TensorFlow/PyTorch), FPGA Programming, Embedded Systems

Contact Us
If you are interested in joining the ICAN Group, please email wantong.li@ucr.edu with the email title of "Prospective Student: your name, degree level (Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D.)", as well as the following information about you:

• Current CV
• Undergraduate (and Master's if applicable) transcripts
• A brief description of your research interests, and the reason you are interested in doing research with ICAN
• Your proficiency in the skillsets described above (You may use a scoring system from 0 to 5)
• Previous publications, coding and project samples