======================================================================== SIGDA -- The Resource for EDA Professionals www.sigda.org ======================================================================== 1 December 2004 ACM/SIGDA E-NEWSLETTER Vol. 34, No. 22 Online archive: http://www.sigda.org/newsletter Online feedback: http://www.sigda.org/newsletter.php?op=survey ======================================================================== (This ACM/SIGDA E-NEWSLETTER is being sent to all persons on the ACM/SIGDA mailing list. To request removal from the list, please email "pmadden@cs.binghamton.edu".) ======================================================================== Contents of this E-NEWSLETTER: (1) Current DA TechNews issue Wednesday December 1 2004 From: "Diana Marculescu" (2) Upcoming Conferences and Symposia Wednesday December 1 2004 From: "Igor Markov" (3) Upcoming Funding Opportunities Wednesday December 1 2004 From: "Iris Bahar" (4) Call for Papers: IEEE Trans. on CAD - Special Issue on Design Automation Methods and Tools for Microfluidics-Based Biochips Wednesday December 1 2004 From: "Krishnendu Chakrabarty" ======================================================================== Dear ACM/SIGDA members, The SIGDA E-Newsletter is actively looking for industrial sponsors. If you are an EDA company interested in getting more visibility and supporting our E-Newsletter, please contact the Newsletter editor, Diana Marculescu (dianam@ece.cmu.edu). You can find the content of the current issue of SIGDA TechNews at http://www.acm.org/da_technews/current/homepage.html As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions. If you would like to participate or contribute to the content of the E-Newsletter, please feel free to contact any of us. Diana Marculescu, SIGDA E-Newsletter Editor Larry Pileggi, SIGDA E-Newsletter TechNews Associate Editor R. Iris Bahar, SIGDA E-Newsletter Associate Editor Igor Markov, SIGDA E-Newsletter Associate Editor Hiroto Yasuura, SIGDA E-Newsletter Associate Editor, Asian Activities DA TechNews headlines: "Nano World: Chipping Away at Chip Size" The semiconductor industry will have to move to different chip-building technology by 2007 if it wants to keep up with Moore's Law, according to a new report from Lux Research that analyzes 10 technologies competing to succeed 193-nm lithography. ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item1 "Chip Makers Debate Clock Frequency, Architecture in Apps Processors" Mobile processing experts debated the role of clock frequency and alternative architectures at the 3G World Congress in Hong Kong this week. Mobile component firms Intel, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm all agreed that new features such as five-megapixel ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item2 "Design Automation Conference Announces Executive Committee" The 42nd Design Automation Conference (DAC) Executive Committee has been chosen from academia and the electronics and EDA industries, and will be responsible for planning the meeting's technical program and establishing new initiatives, among other ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item3 "Eyeing the Next Wave in RISC Computing" RISC processors have pioneered major advances now used in commodity chips, including the RISC-type design principles that have been adopted by CISC processors such as the Pentium 4 and Opteron, and 64-bit processing now available in x86 architecture ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item4 "Fibers Mix Light and Electricity" MIT scientists have engineered semiconductor and fiber-optic materials so that strands can be pulled together to form a type of fiber with both optical and semiconducting properties. Previously, it was assumed that the viscosity and other ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item5 "UNH Builds Invisible Tools" The University of New Hampshire's (UNH) Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing is the school's chance to prove itself in the emerging field of nanoscience, says UNH researcher Glen Miller. The National Science Foundation has awarded UNH, Northeastern ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item6 "SRC and SIA Announce System-on-Chip Design Challenge" University students and faculty entering the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and the Semiconductor Industry Association's (SIA) SoC design contest will have a chance to win up to $75,000 in cash prizes and have their SoC design fabricated ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item7 "OpenAccess Adoption Challenging But Worth It" Members of the OpenAccess Coalition--IBM, Freescale Semiconductor, and LSI Logic--are all committed to adopting that data model for their design systems, according to company representatives at the OpenAccess Developer's Forum in San Jose, ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item8 "Semiconductor Design Houses Begin Adopting New Solutions to Shorten Lead Time" More Korean design houses such as Dawin Tech are using structured ASICs and other solutions to help them shorten the time it takes to get their products to market. Structured ASICs have standard components such as the memory and processor already finished, ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item9 "Europe Lead-Free Decree Falling on Some Tin Ears, Says Poll" Chip and circuit board manufacturers are eyeing a July 1, 2006 deadline that will require those components to be lead-free in Europe. However, a recent poll from parts distributor Avnet and Technology Forecasters found nearly one-third of the 60-plus ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item10 "A Challenge to the Verification Industry" EDA vendors need to provide verification strategy and tools that not only contain verification costs, but reduce them, writes Tharas Systems' Sanjay Sawant. IBM recently created a 6nm silicon transistor, the smallest ever. Though this innovation ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item11 "Future of Photonics Isn't Where You Might Think" Backlighting is the fastest-growing LED application, outpacing growth in large signs, signals, and illumination, said recently retired Optoelectronics Industry Development Association executive director Fred Welsh at an industry meeting. With ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item12 "Here Comes BTX: Should You Care?" Intel is rolling out its first retail Balanced Technology Extended (BTX) motherboards this week. BTX and BTX-based PCs have been available from some vendors for some time, but the new motherboard and chassis specification is unlikely to make waves ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item13 "MIT Wants to Make Computing as Easy as Breathing" MIT professor Anant Agarwal's design of reprogrammable computer chips that can drive multifunctional devices is just one key element of MIT's Project Oxygen, a $50 million initiative to make computing simple and virtually ubiquitous. The project's goals ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item14 "Nano Fabric May Make Computers Thinner" A team of British and Russian researchers led by University of Manchester professor Andre Geim have removed individual atomic sheets of carbon from graphite crystals, and Manchester's Jo Grady reports that this single-atom-thick nano-fabric exhibits ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item15 "NSF Grants for Research of Wireless, Optical Networks" University of Texas at Dallas engineering professors have received $950,000 in funds from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in order to develop cooperative wireless networks and optical networking technology. Associate electrical engineering ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item16 "Lighthearted Transistor" Engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have found ways to meld transistors with microchip lasers to create a miniature device able to both amplify electric current and emit a narrow beam of light. Developers Nick Holonyak Jr., Milton Feng, ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item17 "MRAM, FeRAM Offer New Levels of Performance" Chip makers are aggressively developing new types of memory technologies that will use little power and offer nonvolatile data storage. Magneto-resistive RAM (MRAM) is being researched by a number of companies, and Infineon and IBM recently unveiled ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item18 "Key Power Management Hurdles in Designing Power Into the Ethernet" Power over Ethernet (PoE) has spread to a number of surprising applications, even including security and music, since its ratification as an IEEE standard in June 2003, writes Jonathan Bearfield, a Power Interface product line manager at Texas ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item19 "Design for Volume" Shrinking process nodes and the increasing mix of analog and digital circuits have increasingly forced designers to take testing and manufacturing into account when creating their designs, requiring designers to have much more access to highly ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item20 "A Split at the Core" The long-anticipated halt in the biennial release of new chips with smaller transistors and higher clock speeds seems to have arrived in 2004, because of difficulties with both the physics and the economics of the matter. Nearly every major ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item21 "Efficient RF System Design Using Budget Analysis" RF system designers should use new budget analysis solutions to determine early on what trade-offs will be needed to achieve optimal RF system performance. Budget analysis results often do not require handwritten equations because they come pre-loaded ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item22 "Nanotechnology: Genesis of Semiconductor's Future" In excerpts from interviews, several leading nanotechnology researchers discuss what they think the nanotechnology field will look like when, or if, nanotechnology takes over from CMOS. Ahmed Busnaina of the NSF Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item23 "The Three Ps of Value in Selecting DSPs" The three "Ps" to consider when choosing digital signal processors (DSPs) are price, performance, and power consumption, and DSPs are best chosen by seeking the proper balance of the three for the application in mind. However, the many metrics ... http://www.acm.org//da_technews/articles/2004-2/1125t.html#item24 ======================================================================== Submission deadlines: --------------------- ICCSS 2005 - Intl. Conf. on Computational Science Atlanta, GA, USA Deadline: December 1, 2004 Conference dates: May 22-25, 2005 http://conferences.mathcs.emory.edu/iccs2005/ SLIP 2005 - Intl. Workshop on System-Level Interconnect Prediction San Francisco, CA Deadline: December 10, 2004 Symposium dates: April 2-3, 2005 ETS 2005 - European Test Symposium (ETS) Tallinn, Estonia Deadline: December 10, 2004 Symposium dates: May 22-25, 2005 http://sise.ttu.ee/ati/ETS/ GLSVLSI 2005 - Great Lakes Symposium on VLSI Chicago, IL Deadline: December 17, 2004 Symposium dates: April 17-19, 2005 http://www.glsvlsi.org 2005 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits Kyoto, Japan Deadline: January 7, 2005 Symposia dates: June 14-18, 2005 http://vlsisymposium.org/ SIGDA Ph.D. Forum at DAC Anaheim, CA Deadline: January 31, 2005 Forum date: Jun. 14, 2005 http://www.sigda.org/daforum/ ISSCS 2005 - Intl. Symposium on Signals, Circuits and Systems (NEW) Iasi, Romania Deadline: Jan 31, 2005 Symposium dates: July 14-15, 2005 http://scs.etc.tuiasi.ro/isscs2005/ LCTES 2005 - Conf. on Languages, Compilers and Tools for Embedded Systems Chicago, IL Deadline: January 29, 2005 Conference dates: June 15-17, 2005 http://lctes05.snu.ac.kr/ ERSA 2005 - Int'l Conf. Engineering of Reconfigurable Systems and Algorithms Las Vegas, NV Deadline: February 7, 2005 Conference dates: Jun. 27-30, 2005 http://www.scism.lsbu.ac.uk/ERA/ersa.html SC 2005 - Supercomputer Conference Heidelberg, Germany Deadline: February 16, 2005 Conference dates: June 21-24, 2005 http://www.supercomp.de/ SAT-2005 Eighth International Conference on Theory and Applications of Satisfiability Testing with 2005 SAT SOLVER COMPETITION 2005 QBF SOLVER EVALUATION St. Andrews, Scotland Deadline: February 13/20, 2004 (paper submissions) Deadline: February 23, 2004 (solvers and benchmarks) Symposium dates: June 19-23, 2005 http://www.satisfiability.org/SAT05/ ISLPED 2005 - Int'l Symp. on Low Power Electronics San Diego, CA Deadline: February 20, 2005 Symposium dates: August 8-10, 2005 http://www.islped.org/ MIXDES 2005 - Int'l Conf. Mixed Design of ICs and Systems Krakow, Poland Deadline: February 28, 2005 Conference dates: June 22-25, 2005 http://www.mixdes.org/ CHES 2005 - Workshop on Cryptograhic Hardware and Embedded Systems Edinburgh, Scotland Deadline: March 1, 2005 Workshop dates: August 29 - September 1, 2005 http://islab.oregonstate.edu/ches/ FPL 2005 - Int'l Conf. on Field Programmable Logic and Applications Tampere, Finland Deadline: March 21, 2005 Conference dates: August 30-31, 2005 http://fpl.org/ ICCAD 2005 - Int'l. Conf. on Computer-Aided Design for Integrated Circuits San Jose, CA Conference dates: Nov. 6-10, 2005 Deadline: April 20, 2005 http://www.iccad.com SBCCI 2005 - 18th Symposium on Integrated Circuits and Systems Design Florianspolis, Brazil Deadline: April 4, 2005 Symposium dates: Sept. 4-7, 2005 http://www.sbc.org.br/sbcci Upcoming symposia, conferences and workshops: --------------------------------------------- MICRO`04 - Intl. Symp. on Micoarchitecture Portland, OR Symposium dates: Dec 6-8, 2004 http://www.microarch.org/micro37/ ICFPT04 - International Conference on Field Programmable Technology Brisbane, Australia Conference dates: December 6-8, 2004 http://www.icfpt.org IP/SOC 2004 - IP Based SoC Design Forum and Exhibition Grenoble, France Workshop dates: December 8-9, 2004 http://www.us.design-reuse.com/ipsoc2004/ ICECS 2004 - Intl. Conf. Electronic Circuits and Systems Tel-Aviv, Israel Conference dates: December 12-15, 2004 http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~icecs04/ VLSI Design 2005 - Intl. Conf. on VLSI Design and ICES-4 - Intl. Conf. on Embedded Systems Kolkata, India Conference dates: January 3-7, 2005 http://vlsi.nj.nec.com/ ASPDAC 2005 - ACM/IEEE Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conf. Shanghai, China Conference dates: January 18-21, 2005 http://www.aspdac2005.com/ SODA 2005 - ACM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms Vancouver, British Columbia Symposium dates: January 23-25, 2005 http://www.siam.org/meetings/DA05/ DesignCon-2005 Santa Clara, CA Conference dates: January 31-February 3, 2005 http://www.designcon.com/ HPCA`04 - Intl. Symp. on High-Performance Computer Architecture San Francisco, CA Symposium dates: Feb 12-16, 2005 http://www.hpcaconf.org/hpca11/ FPGA 2005 - Intl. Symp. on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays Monterey, CA Symposium dates: February 20-22, 2005 http://www.isfpga.org/ TAU 2005 - ACM/IEEE Int'l Workshop on Timing Issues (NEW) in the Specification and Synthesis of Digital Systems San Francisco, California Workshop dates: February 28 - March 1, 2005 http://www.tauworkshop.com/ ISQED 2005 - IEEE Int'l Symposium on Quality of Electronic Design (NEW) San Jose, CA, USA Symposium dates: March 28-30, 2005 http://www.isqed.org/ SAC`05 - ACM Symposium on Applied Computing Santa Fe, New Mexico Symposium dates: March 13-17, 2005 http://www.acm.org/conferences/sac/sac2005/ DATE 2005 - Design Automation and Test in Europe Munich, Germany Conference dates: March 7-11, 2005 http://www.date-conference.com/ ASYNC 2005 -- IEEE Intl. Symp. on Asynchronous Circuits and Systems New York City, NY, US Symposium dates: March 14-16, 2005 http://vlsi.cornell.edu/async2005/ TACAS 2005 - Int'l Conf. on Tools & Algorithms For the Construction and Analysis of Systems Edinburgh, U.K. Conference dates: April 4-8, 2005 http://www-verimag.imag.fr/TACAS2005.html IPDPS 2005 - Intl. Parallel and Distributed Processing Symp. Denver, CO Symposium dates: April 4-8, 2005 http://www.ipdps.org/ HPC 2005 --- High Performance Computing Symposium San Diego, CA, USA Symposium dates: April 2-8, 2005 http://www.caip.rutgers.edu/hpc2005/ ISPD 2005 - Intl. Symp. on Physical Design San Francisco, CA Symposium dates: April 3-6, 2005 RAW 2005 --- Reconfigurable Architectures Workshop Denver, CO, USA Workshop dates: April 4-5, 2005 http://www.ece.lsu.edu/vaidy/raw05/ SPIE Symposium on Microtechnologies for New Millenium Sevilla, Spain Symposium dates: May 9-11, 2005 http://spie.org/conferences/calls/05/emt/ NanoTech 2005 - Nanotechnology Conference & Trade Show Anaheim, CA, USA Conference dates: May 8-12, 2005 http://www.nsti.org/Nanotech2005/ STOC 2005 - ACM Symp. on Theory of Computing Baltimore, MD Symposium dates: May 22-24, 2005 http://www.cs.jhu.edu/~stoc05/call_for_papers.html ISCAS 2005 - Intl. Symp on Circuits and Systems Kobe, Japan Symposium dates: May 23-26, 2005 http://www.iscas05.org/ CNNA 2005 - IEEE Workshop on Cellular Neural Networks and Apps Hsin-Chu, TAIWAN Worskhop dates: May 28-30, 2005 http://cnn.cn.nctu.edu.tw/cnna2005/ ISCA 2005 - Intl. Symp. on Computer Architecture Madison, WI Symposium dates: June 4-8, 2005 http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~isca2005/ DAC 2005 - Design Automation Conference Anaheim, CA Conference dates: June 13-17, 2005 IMAPS/EMPC2005: European Microelectronics and Packaging (NEW) Conference & Exhibition Brugge (Belgium) Conference dates: June 12 - 15, 2005 http://www.imapsbrugge.be/ http://www.empc2005.be ASEE 2005 - Annual Conf of Amer. Society for Engineering Education Portland, OR Conference dates: June 12-15, 2005 http://www.asee.org/conferences/ ======================================================================== Upcoming Funding Opportunities ------------------------------ NSF PROGRAMS NSF Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars (DTS) Letter of Intent Due Date(s) (optional): September 22, 2004 Preliminary Proposal Due Date(s) (required): October 20, 2004 Full Proposal Deadline(s): February 09, 2005 Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04514/nsf04514.htm Deadline: December 1, 2004 (letter of intent) January 5, 2005 (full proposal) Universal Access http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2003/nsf03612/nsf03612.htm Deadline: December 6, 2004 Science and Engineering Information Integraton and Informatics (SEIII) http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04528/nsf04528.htm Deadline: December 15, 2004 Theoretical Foundations http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05500/nsf05500.htm Deadline: January 5, 2005 Science of Learning Centers http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05509/nsf05509.htm Deadline: January 14, 2005 (Catalyst Competition) February 24, 2005 (preliminary proposal for Centers Competition) June 29, 2005 (full proposals for Centers Competition) Pan-American Advanced Studies Institutes Program (PASI) http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2003/nsf03506/nsf03506.htm Deadline: January 15, 2005 Networking Technology and Systems http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05505/nsf05505.htm Deadline: January 21, 2005 Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05515/nsf05515.htm Deadline: January 27, 2005 Emerging Models and Technologies for Computation (EMT) http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05501/nsf05501.htm Deadline: February 4, 2005 Cyber Trust http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05518/nsf05518.htm Deadline: February 7, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SRC programs SoC Design Challenge http://www.src.org/SoC_contest/default.asp Initial Deadline: January 20, 2005 Graduate Fellowships and Scholarships http://www.src.org/member/students/fellowship.asp Deadline: February 15, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DARPA programs Computer Network Operations http://www.darpa.mil/baa/ss04-31.htm Deadline: December 1, 2004 Advanced Technologies http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa04-09.htm Deadline: December 31, 2004 RF Guided Munitions http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa04-06.htm Deadline: January 14, 2005 Control Plane http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa04-11.htm Deadline: January 12, 2005 Defense Sciences Research and Technology http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa04-12P1.htm http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa04-12P2.htm Deadline: February 2, 2005 Tools to Identify an Enemy's Command Organization and manage its Desruption http://www.darpa.mil/baa/sn05-09.html Deadline: December 10, 2004 Architectures for Cognitive Information Processing http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa04-14.htm Deadline: January 21, 2005 High Operationg Temperature mid-Wave Infrared Focal Plane Arrays (HOT MWIR) http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa05-07.htm Deadline: February 16, 2005 Innovative Tactical Technology http://www.darpa.mil/baa/baa04-04.htm Deadline: January 31, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- U.S. Defense See http://www.aro.army.mil/research/index.htm for general listing of funding opportunities from US defense sources Office of Naval Research ONR Young Investigator Program http://www.onr.navy.mil/02/baa/docs/fy2005yip.pdf Deadline: January 13, 2005 U.S. Army Research See http://www.aro.army.mil/research/arobaa06.pdf for general information about research areas of interest. Air Force Office of Scientific Research Window on the United States Program http://www.afosr.af.mil/pages/afrpgacq.htm Deadline: ongoing Window on Europe, Asia, Canada, Central and South America http://www.afosr.af.mil/pages/afrpgacr.htm Deadline: ongoing ======================================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems Special Issue on Design Automation Methods and Tools for Microfluidics-Based Biochips Microfluidics-based biochips, also known as lab-on-a-chip or bio-MEMS, are becoming increasingly popular for DNA analysis, clinical diagnostics, and the detection/manipulation of bio-molecules. These systems automate highly repetitive laboratory tasks by replacing cumbersome equipment with miniaturized and integrated systems, and they enable the handling of small amounts, e.g., nanoliters, of fluids. Thus they are able to provide ultra-sensitive detection at significantly lower costs per assay than traditional methods. As the use of microfluidics-based biochips increases, their complexity is expected to become significant due to the need for multiple and concurrent assays on the chip, as well as more sophisticated control mechanisms for resource management. Time-to-market and fault tolerance are also expected to emerge as design considerations. As a result, current full-custom design techniques will not scale well for larger designs. There is a need to deliver the same level of CAD support to the biochip designer that the semiconductor industry now takes for granted. The special issue will deal with all aspects of design automation for microfluidics-based biochips. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: device modeling; adaptation of bioassays for on-chip implementations; numerical methods and simulation tools; architectural synthesis, scheduling and binding of assay operations; physical design and module placement; fault modeling and testing; reconfiguration methods. Submission and Review Procedure: Prospective authors should follow the submission guidelines of IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design (TCAD). All manuscripts must be submitted electronically to the TCAD website at http://tcad.ece.orst.edu. Authors should indicate that their manuscript is being submitted to the Special Issue on Design Automation Methods and Tools for MEMS-Based Biochips. All papers will undergo the standard TCAD review procedure. Schedule- Submission Deadline: February 15, 2005 Notification of Acceptance: August 31, 2005 Target Publication Date: February 2006 Guest Editors: Krishnendu Chakrabarty Dept. Electrical & Computer Engineering Duke University, Durham, NC, USA E-mail: krish@ee.duke.edu Christian Paulus Infineon Technologies Munich, Germany E-mail: Christian.Paulus@infineon.com A PDF file for the cfp can be donwloaded from http://www.ee.duke.edu/~krish/Biochips.cfp.pdf ========================================================================