Next-Generation Design and EDA Challenges: Small Physics, Big Systems, and Tall Tool-Chains

Abstract

There is much discussion of two challenges in the design of tomorrow’s electronics: the difficult “small physics” of nanoscale transistors, and the silicon/software complexity of “big systems”. But those of us who want to build beautiful algorithms have an additional hurdle: “tall tool-chains”. If it takes 50 tool-steps to build an industrial-strength design flow, and each tool is based on 1-2 “big algorithms”, does this mean that each new algorithm idea is worth, at best, 1-2% of the success of a design? This seems to me a bad way of accounting for the tremendous value that EDA brings to the world of design. How can we have a big impact in this important technology area? In this talk, I will offer several pieces of advice for how not to get buried by the tall-toolchain problem. I will discuss how to identify design problems that can have large impact, how to embrace the strange physics of tomorrow’s silicon technologies in the service of building beautiful algorithms, and how to get fresh (and unique) insights on problems by spending time working with a real design team. I will use design examples ranging from lithography, to computational finance, to silicon-based speech recognition, to illustrate the point that this is an exciting time to be working on tomorrow’s tool and design challenges.