Mini Course

2-3 February 2016, 10:15 - 16:00, EPFL, Room: INF 328

Instructor: Prof. Ralph Otten

 

The course will be on algorithms in layout synthesis. Most problems cannot be "efficiently" solved by polynomial-time algorithms. We therefore start the course by several heuristics in solving a classical layout problem. That will give us an inventory of fruitful approaches to other problems in the area. We will go in depth when algorithms have a wider application to intractable problems in general. Stochastic optimization will conclude the first day, while trade-off approaches will finish off the course. On the way a plethora of 'classical' layout solutions will be systematically presented.

 

Tuesday, 2 February 2016
Block 1: Coping with hard problems
10:15 - 11:00	The channel routing problem Classical formulation
11:15 - 12:00	From doglegs to contours Routing
12:15 - 14:00	Lunch - offered to those who take the course
Block 2: Stochastic optimization
14:15 - 15:00	High level problems in layout synthesis Partitioning, global placement
15:15 - 16:00	Local search Annealing

Wednesday, 3 February 2016
Block 3: Floorplan design
10:15 - 11:00	Structural restraints
11:15 - 12:00	Efficient optimization Paradigms
12:15 - 14:00	Lunch - offered to those who take the course
Block 4: Design closure
14:15 - 15:00	Iteration free design
15:15 - 16:00	Timing closure Pareto algebra

 

About the instructor:

Ralph Otten has been active in research in automation of layout synthesis for more than 40 years. He finished his phd-thesis in 1976 on the automatic layout synthesis for bipolar integrated circuits, a topic still very actual today. While in the mathematics department of IBM Research in Yorktown Heights he continued this research by embedding it in the Yorktown Silicon Compiler, aiming at translating a functional description into the masks of an integrated circuit. From 1987 he worked at Delft University and Eindhoven University with research on closure problems in Design Automation. At both universities he also directed the developments in EE curricula.