New Technologies for Very Large-Scale Electronic Design Automation

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The field of electronic design automation is concerned with creating software capable of automating the process of designing electronic devices. The electronics industry is known for exponential increases in design complexity and performance of resulting circuits [1]. At the same time, new technologies are being developed in other fields to solve difficult problems, for example, machine learning, MapReduce programming models, and high performance computing systems. The research program outlined in what follows is aimed at developing new ways to solve very large scale problems in electronic design automation using new technologies.* *Major challenges being faced in the field are related to problems arising from scale. For example, the very large-scale problems arising out of creating circuits with billions of components. Industry is constantly feeling pressure to quickly create devices for competitive producers of electronics including computers, phones, and tablets. Automation is the key to being able to design quickly, yet the most challenging designs require substantial intervention from designers to configure the software for each design. Many iterations of a design can take place before converging to a final design meeting product specifications. The design process may take between several months to over a year for cutting-edge circuits. Hence, the targets may not be met in time to meet the producer's deadlines. Failing to meet a deadline can equate to big losses and loss of future customers in business. These factors all go to support research into solving large problems at scales never previously seen before.**The ultimate goal of the research program is to develop several pieces which will be the beginning of a highly scalable design automation tool. The tool will be available through a cloud service where the number of computing cores is elastic and practically limitless. Consumers would be able to have designs of arbitrary size and pay for more or less computing resources depending on how quickly they need the circuit fabricated. Having such a tool would greatly benefit industry and the projects described in this proposal will bring this vision closer to reality and inspire other researchers to pursue a similar goal.**The projects discussed in the proposal have a direct impact on the multi-billion dollar electronic design industry. However, the research also involves topics that are of strategic importance to Canada. This is evidenced by the overlap with NSERC's strategic grants target areas in information and communication technologies that emphasize a close connection with industry and recognize market potential of research, collaboration, technical and financial implications, and realizing value of the research within five years. In particular, the categories of Next Generation Computing Platforms: cloud computing, From Data to Knowledge to Action: unstructured pattern recognition, and advanced applications in artificial intelligence. The proposed research program also has the support of the department and aligns with the University of Calgary's strategic research plans to become a top five Canadian research university by 2016. The proposed research program aligns with the Eyes High strategic vision in the categories of balance, curiosity, collaboration, communication, globalization, and excellence. Taken together, they support programs invested in new lines of inquiry with a global impact and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.