Toward Agile, Intelligent and Open-Source Design Automation of Digital/Analog/Mixed-Signal ICs

Host:            Prof. Yajun Ha

Link:                 Zoom:    https://zoom.us/j/96578160902?pwd=QUdMbTlvTG00L1ZCdVEyT2R2YjJSUT09      会议号：965 7816 0902      密码：728427

Abstract:    

This talk will present some recent results and trends toward agile, intelligent, and open-source design automation for digital/analog/mixed-signal ICs, in particular leveraging AI with domain-specific customizations for IC design. I will first show how we leverage deep learning hardware and software to develop an open-source VLSI placement engine, DREAMPlace [DAC’19 Best Paper Award, TCAD 2021 Donald O. Pederson Best Paper Award], which is around 40x faster than the previous state-of-the-art academic placer. DREAMPlace 2.0 and 3.0 have been further developed to tackle detailed placement and region constraints. DREAMPlace has also been applied to macro placement together with reinforcement learning. I will then present MAGICAL which leverages both machine and human intelligence to produce fully automated analog layout from netlists to GDSII, including automatic layout constraint generation, placement, and routing. MAGICAL 1.0 has been open-sourced, and validated with a silicon-proven 40nm 1GS/s ∆Σ ADC [CICC’21]. I will also discuss our new MAGICAL capability, OpenSAR for end-to-end SAR ADC compilation [ICCAD’21], and other research trends. In the end, I will briefly discuss our research efforts on optical neural networks to close the virtuous cycle of AI for IC and IC for AI.

Bio:    

David Z. Pan is a Full Professor and Silicon Laboratories Endowed Chair at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin.  His research interests include bidirectional AI and IC interactions, electronic design automation, design for manufacturing, hardware security, and CAD for emerging technologies. He has published over 420 refereed journal/conference papers and 8 US patents. He has served in many journal editorial boards and conference committees, including various leadership roles such as ICCAD 2019 General Chair, ASP-DAC 2017 TPC Chair, and ISPD 2008 General Chair. He has received many awards, including 20 Best Paper Awards (at TCAD, DAC, ICCAD, DATE, ASP-DAC, ISPD, HOST, IBM, SRC, etc.), SRC Technical Excellence Award, DAC Top 10 Author Award in Fifth Decade, ASP-DAC Frequently Cited Author Award, ACM/SIGDA Outstanding New Faculty Award, NSF CAREER Award, IBM Faculty Award (4 times), etc. He has graduated 40 PhD students and postdocs who have won many awards, including ACM Student Research Competition Grand Finals 1st Place twice (in 2018 and 2021), and four Outstanding PhD Dissertation Awards from ACM/SIGDA and EDAA.  He is a Fellow of IEEE and SPIE.