This proposal requests funds from the National Science Foundation to purchase equipment for computer and information science and engineering research in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Virginia Tech. The requested equipment will provide researchers with a high quality integrated circuit design system. The three principal ivestigators have recently joined the faculty and wish to initiate computer engineering research that requires such a VLSI design system. The capability is presently not available to the researchers. The requested equipment is a VLSI design system consisting of workstation hardware and design automation software. The equipment will be used initially by four projects that span a range for research areas. Two projects will use the system to design circuits for use in development, analysis, verification, and empirical studies of design for testability and test generation techniques. The third project ivestigates to use of digital and analog processing on a single chip for a biomedical computing application. The remaining project involves the design of a communications processor for use in multicomputers. The equipment will provide capabilities to allow the investigators to contribute to the university and the national technology base. The equipment will significantly increase the capacity for research in the areas of VLSI design, computer-aided design and test, and systems architecture.
