On September 11th and 12th the researchers of our priority program got together for the annual meeting 2025. This year’s meeting was special as it marked the end of the first funding period and the start of the second. But as usual it also offered a great opportunity present the individual projects and to exchange and discuss ideas.
On the evening of September 10th participants started to arrive at the Sporthotel Fuchsbachtal in Barsinghausen just outside of Hannover. The venue not only offered a great conference room but also gave justice to its name. Located on the edge of a lush green forest many the walls were decorated with photographs of many national and international sports teams that had stayed here in the past which gave the hotel a special characteristic. Furthermore we could make use of the sport facilities including a swimming pool as well as the beautiful surrounding countryside after a good day’s discussion.
The meeting kicked off on Sept. 11th with welcoming regards by the priority program’s coordinator Olaf Spinczyk. A special welcome was addressed to the new projects starting with the second funding period and the new researchers were introduced. Second point on the agenda was this year’s keynote by Menno Mennenga of Ferroelectric Memory GmbH from Dresden. Mr Mennenga and his company are currently working on a new main memory technology called “DRAM+” and developing a new chip that will be persistent as well as compatible with conventional DRAM. Researchers took great interest in the keynote because several projects had focused on persistent memory during the first funding period. The fact that Ferroelectric Memory GmbH is developing this new technology in Germany offers a great opportunity for cooperation with the priority program. It was agreed to get together again as soon as possible in a workshop to discuss and deepen the cooperation between research and industry. The first day offered a dense but varied schedule with individual projects presenting their progress and research findings as well as reports of the mini workshops that were held during the last year.
On Sept. 12th we were very happy to welcome Valentina Damerow via video link representing the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Ms Damerow reported that the DFG was very pleased with the high level of cooperation among the individual projects as well as the good reaction to Intel’s decision to discontinue its Optane memory development.
The final part of the annual meeting featured not only a lively discussion and helpful remarks by the program’s advisory board but also the award of the Best Collaborators. Winners of the first funding period were Mahta Mayahinia (KIT) and Hamid Farzaneh (TU Dresden). Tobias Webel, representing the awards sponsor IBM, and Olaf Spinczyk were happy to present the award to Hamid in person and Matha who was participating via Video link. The second funding period will see a second edition of the Best Collaborator Award.