The Design Automation Summer School (DASS) will offer graduate students the opportunity to participate in a two day intensive course on selected areas of research and development in design automation (DA). Each topic of instruction in this course will be covered by a well-established researcher who will define the topic, describe recent accomplishments in considerable detail, and outline upcoming challenges. Interactive discussions and follow up activities among the participants will round off an intensive yet comprehensive activity geared towards graduate students in DA. Intellectual Merit The School offers graduate students pursuing doctoral studies in DA the opportunity to participate in a week-long intensive course focusing on the core as well as new and emerging areas in DA. The school is intended to broaden and complement a limited and often highly focused curriculum in DA that is currently offered at universities. The topics selected include new devices and architectures, fault-tolerant/reconfigurable nano-systems; hardware/software co-design, high-level synthesis and optimization, system level design; logic synthesis and optimization; circuit and interconnect modeling, design, and optimization, signal integrity; timing, statistical timing analysis; place and route, floorplanning, physical design; design for manufacturing; verification, testing, validation; low power design, power and leakage in new devices; thermal and physical effects during 3D integration; and MEMS CAD. Broader Impact The goals of the DASS dovetail well into the NSF's primary objectives of investing in the education of the next generation of engineers and computer scientists and achieving broadened participation from underrepresented populations. The DASS is also intended to complement educational and professional development activities in the electronic design automation arena including scholarships, awards, and outreach projects such as the University Booth, the CADAthlon, and the Design Automation Conference (DAC) Ph.D. forum that have met with tremendous success over the past decade. These programs are intended to introduce and outline emerging challenges, and to foster creative thinking in the next crop of DA engineers. Simultaneously, they also help the students hone their problem solving, programming, and teamwork skills in additional to fostering long-term collegial relationships. Together, these programs serve as an innovative initiative to assist in the development of top students in the field of electronic design automation. Simultaneously, they provide a platform for academia.
