Nanometer design: place your bets

Overview Two years ago, DAC-2001 attendees enjoyed a thrilling debatepanel, “Who’s Got Nanometer Design Under Control?”, pitting sky-is-falling Physics die-hards against not-to-worry Methodology gurus. Then, the DAC audience overwhelmingly voted the match for the Methodologists. Now, we've just gone through the biggest business downturn in the industry's history, and we're hearing more and more about chip failures due to 130nm physical effects. Both physics and economics are a lot worse than we thought two years ago. Where are those simple, correct-by-construction methodologies for signal integrity, power integrity, low-power, etc. that we were promised? Were we bamboozled by glib promises from those Methodologists? In this session, we bring back the panelists from two years ago, not for another debate, but to hear well-reasoned perspectives on how to prioritize spending to address nanometer design challenges. Yes, methodology can solve any problem – but now we want to know which problems, in what priority order, at what cost. The panel will address the following questions. • What are the economic impacts and significance of the key nanometer design challenges, relative to each other? • Which nanometer design problems merit responsible R&D investment, in what amounts and proportion? • What is the likelihood of success, both near-term and longterm, in solving key nanometer design challenges? • Where will the answers come from? To keep the discussion very concrete, each panelist will be given a $100 budget, and must defend their allocation of this budget to attack various design problems. Where should the $100 be spent? The audience will determine the best-reasoned allocation, and the winning panelist keeps all the money.