Started as a Research Scientist Intern at Meta MSL, working on AI infrastructure and kernel optimization.
Yifan Qin (秦一凡)
I am a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. Before that, I received my B.E. and M.S. at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Now I am at Meta Super Intelligence Lab (MSL) as a Research Scientist Intern, working on AI infrastructure and kernel optimization. Feel free to reach out for research collaboration or work opportunities!
Contact: yqin3 [at] nd [dot] edu
Research
I work on robust and efficient AI systems for acceleration, with an emphasis on AI infrastructure and practical hardware-software co-design.
News
Jun 2026
March 2026
Passed Ph.D. oral examination.
Projects
Selected Publications
Journal articles
NeFT: Negative Feedback Training to Improve Robustness of Compute-In-Memory DNN Accelerators
Yifan Qin, Zheyu Yan, Dailin Gan, Jun Xia, Zixuan Pan, Wujie Wen, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2025 TCAD: IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems.
Yifan Qin, Zheyu Yan, Dailin Gan, Jun Xia, Zixuan Pan, Wujie Wen, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2025 TCAD: IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems.
Recent progress on memristive convolutional neural networks for edge intelligence
Yifan Qin, Han Bao, Feng Wang, Jia Chen, Yi Li, and Xiangshui Miao.
2020 AIS: Advanced Intelligent Systems. Journal Back Cover.
Yifan Qin, Han Bao, Feng Wang, Jia Chen, Yi Li, and Xiangshui Miao.
2020 AIS: Advanced Intelligent Systems. Journal Back Cover.
Design of high robustness BNN inference accelerator based on binary memristors
Yifan Qin, Rui Kuang, Xiaodi Huang, Yi Li, Jia Chen, and Xiangshui Miao.
2020 TED: IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.
Yifan Qin, Rui Kuang, Xiaodi Huang, Yi Li, Jia Chen, and Xiangshui Miao.
2020 TED: IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.
Conference papers
TSB: Tiny Shared Block for Efficient DNN Deployment on NVCIM Accelerators
Yifan Qin, Zheyu Yan, Zixuan Pan, Wujie Wen, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2024 ICCAD: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (acceptance rate 24%).
Yifan Qin, Zheyu Yan, Zixuan Pan, Wujie Wen, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2024 ICCAD: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (acceptance rate 24%).
A 10.60 μW 150 GOPS Mixed-Bit-Width Sparse CNN Accelerator for Life-Threatening Ventricular Arrhythmia Detection
Yifan Qin, Zhenge Jia, Zheyu Yan, Jay Mok, Manto Yung, Yu Liu, Xuejiao Liu, Wujie Wen, Luhong Liang, Kwang-Ting Tim Cheng, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2025 ASP-DAC: Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference.
Yifan Qin, Zhenge Jia, Zheyu Yan, Jay Mok, Manto Yung, Yu Liu, Xuejiao Liu, Wujie Wen, Luhong Liang, Kwang-Ting Tim Cheng, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2025 ASP-DAC: Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference.
Towards Uncertainty-Quantifiable Biomedical Intelligence: Mixed-signal Compute-in-Entropy for Bayesian Neural Networks
Likai Pei*, Yifan Qin*, Zephan M. Enciso, Boyang Cheng, Jianbo Liu, Steven Davis, Zhenge Jia, Michael Niemier, Yiyu Shi, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Ningyuan Cao.
2024 ICCAD: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design. *Equal contribution. William J. McCalla Best Paper Award Candidate.
Likai Pei*, Yifan Qin*, Zephan M. Enciso, Boyang Cheng, Jianbo Liu, Steven Davis, Zhenge Jia, Michael Niemier, Yiyu Shi, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Ningyuan Cao.
2024 ICCAD: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design. *Equal contribution. William J. McCalla Best Paper Award Candidate.
Improving realistic worst-case performance of NVCiM DNN accelerators through training with right-censored Gaussian noise
Zheyu Yan, Yifan Qin, Wujie Wen, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2023 ICCAD: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design. William J. McCalla Best Paper Award.
Zheyu Yan, Yifan Qin, Wujie Wen, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2023 ICCAD: IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design. William J. McCalla Best Paper Award.
On the viability of using LLMs for SW/HW co-design: An example in designing CiM DNN accelerators
Zheyu Yan, Yifan Qin, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2023 SOCC: IEEE International System-on-Chip Conference.
Zheyu Yan, Yifan Qin, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, and Yiyu Shi.
2023 SOCC: IEEE International System-on-Chip Conference.
A 65nm Uncertainty-quantifiable Ventricular Arrhythmia Detection Engine with 1.75 μJ per Inference
Jianbo Liu, Zephan Enciso, Boyang Cheng, Likai Pei, Steven Davis, Yifan Qin, Zhenge Jia, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, Yiyu Shi, and Ningyuan Cao.
2025 ISSCC: IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference.
Jianbo Liu, Zephan Enciso, Boyang Cheng, Likai Pei, Steven Davis, Yifan Qin, Zhenge Jia, Xiaobo Sharon Hu, Yiyu Shi, and Ningyuan Cao.
2025 ISSCC: IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference.
SGI: Structured 2D Gaussians for Efficient and Compact Large Image Representation
Zixuan Pan, Kaiyuan Tang, Jun Xia, Yifan Qin, Lin Gu, Chaoli Wang, Jianxu Chen, and Yiyu Shi.
2026 CVPR: IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.
Zixuan Pan, Kaiyuan Tang, Jun Xia, Yifan Qin, Lin Gu, Chaoli Wang, Jianxu Chen, and Yiyu Shi.
2026 CVPR: IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.
Patents
Issued
A hardware neural network batch normalization system
CN202011251999.9 · Issued May 20, 2022.
CN202011251999.9 · Issued May 20, 2022.
Issued
A matrix-vector multiplication circuit and calculation method
CN201910792384.8 · Issued October 8, 2021.
CN201910792384.8 · Issued October 8, 2021.
Honors & Awards
ICCAD
William J. McCalla Best Paper Award
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design.
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design.
ICCAD
William J. McCalla Best Paper Award Candidate
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design.
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design.
DAC
Young Fellow
Design Automation Conference.
Design Automation Conference.
HUST
Outstanding Graduate
Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
CUMCM
National Second Prize
China Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling, Ministry of Education, China.
China Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling, Ministry of Education, China.
Talks
Shandong University, Aug 2024 — Efficient and Robust LLMs under System and Noise Constraints
Zhejiang University, Aug 2024 — Uncertainty-aware ML Inference for Real-World Deployment
University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, Aug 2024 — Robust and Efficient ML Systems: From Training to Deployment
Southern University of Science and Technology, Jul 2024 — Efficient ML Inference for Resource-Constrained Systems
AI Chip Center for Emerging Smart Systems, HKUST, Jun 2024 — End-to-End Efficient LLM Systems under Practical Constraints
Activities & Interests
Outside of research, I have a long-standing interest in art and creative expression. One of my paintings was included in a provincial-level art textbook published by the People's Education Press in China. I enjoy drawing and writing, and I stay active through table tennis, soccer, and regular workouts.
President
Table Tennis Association of HUST
Managed school sports competitions and coordinated project reporting and financial reimbursement.
Managed school sports competitions and coordinated project reporting and financial reimbursement.
Member
Undergraduate Mathematical Modeling Team, HUST
National Second Prize in the China Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling.
National Second Prize in the China Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling.
Athlete
College table tennis team, HUST
Served on the college team alongside many professional players.
Served on the college team alongside many professional players.
Docent
Wuhan Museum
Introduced the museum's opening exhibition and artifacts from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Introduced the museum's opening exhibition and artifacts from the Ming and Qing dynasties.