2014 CAD Contest Call for Participation

2014 CAD Contest Call for Participation

http://cad_contest.ee.ncu.edu.tw/CAD-Contest-at-ICCAD2014/

The annual CAD Contest in Taiwan, sponsored by the Ministry of Education (MOE), has been held for 14 consecutive years and has successfully boosted the EDA research momentum in Taiwan. It has been internationalized under the joint sponsorship of IEEE CEDA and Taiwan MOE since 2012. In the first two years of this new contest, 56 teams from 7 regions and 87 teams from 9 regions have been attracted to join respective 2012 and 2013 CAD contest. Many results of top teams have been further enhanced and converted to top international conference and/or journal papers. In the third year, CAD Contest becomes more well-known and well-organized, and is believed to bring more significant contributions to our global EDA community. We design three contest problems covering three distinct areas: logic synthesis & verification, placement, and mask optimization. You are invited to participate!

Problems
In the third year (2014), we design three contest problems covering three distinct areas:

1. Simultaneous CNF Encoder Optimization with SAT solver Setting Selection contributed by Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Taiwan.
2. Incremental Timing-driven Placement contributed by IBM Systems & Technology Group, USA.
3. Design for Manufacturability Flow for Advanced Semiconductor Nodes contributed by IBM Semiconductor R&D Center, USA.

Contest Schedule

1. Registration deadline May 15, 2014
2. Alpha submission June 15, 2014
3. Beta submission August 1, 2014
4. Submission deadline September 1, 2014
5. Final announcement November 2014

Awards
The contest winners receive monetary awards (students only) and certificate.

• 1st Place: One team for each topic

1. Certificate of 1st Place 2. NTD50,000/team (approx. US$1650)

• 2nd Place / 3rd Place: Two teams for each topic

1. Certificate of 2nd Place 2. NTD30,000/team (approx. US$1000)

Other Information

1. For any inquiries, please send emails to: cad.contest.iccad@gmail.com
Please add "ICCAD2014_Contest" to the subject line for any emails regarding the contest.
2. Any update will be announced on 2014 CAD contest website:
http://cad_contest.ee.ncu.edu.tw/CAD-Contest-at-ICCAD2014/
3. The last year (2013 CAD contest at ICCAD) contest website:
http://cad_contest.cs.nctu.edu.tw/CAD-contest-at-ICCAD2013/
4. Highlights of 2012 and 2013 CAD contests at ICCAD, including funny videos provided by top teams.
Available at:
http://cad_contest.cs.nctu.edu.tw/CAD-contest-at-ICCAD2012/highlights.mp4 and
http://cad_contest.cs.nctu.edu.tw/CAD-contest-at-ICCAD2013/3939889/12-min clip v.2.mp4.

Organization

1. Contest chair:
Iris Hui-Ru Jiang (National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan)
2. Contest Co-chairs:
Natarajan Viswanathan (IBM Systems & Technology Group, Austin, TX, USA)
Tai-Chen Chen (National Central University, Taiwan)
Jin-Fu Li (National Central University, Taiwan)
3. Topic chairs:
Jacky Chih-Jen Hsu (Cadence Design Systems Inc., Taiwan)
Myung-Chul Kim (IBM Systems & Technology Group, Austin, TX, USA)
Jin Hu (IBM Systems & Technology Group, Hopewell Jn., NY, USA)
Rasit O. Topaloglu (IBM Semiconductor R&D Center, East Fishkill, NY, USA)

Sponsors

IEEE CEDA (http://ieee-ceda.org/) (Technical sponsorship)
Ministry of Education, Taiwan (http://www.edu.tw/) (Financial sponsorship)