Presenter: Dr. Weidong Cao, Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The George Washington University

Description: Semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) are the foundational hardware cornerstone of national competitiveness by driving trillion-dollar economic growth and advancing various emerging technologies, e.g., generative AI. The demand for IC performance and scale is soaring to unprecedented levels with the ever-increasing information and computing workloads. Thus, developing advanced Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools that enable agile, low-cost, and high-performance ICs has become a national research priority and a strategic goal worldwide. 

In this talk, I will explore how recent breakthroughs in AI/ML can revolutionize the design automation of analog ICs. Analog ICs are crucial for complementing digital ICs by processing continuous signals. Yet, they have historically lagged in design automation techniques since their inception, thereby becoming a major bottleneck in productivity and performance within the current IC ecosystem. Specifically, I will talk about our latest advancements in utilizing reinforcement learning and generative AI to automate the synthesis of analog ICs -- the front-end design stage of the analog IC design flow. Our research demonstrates that AI/ML not only significantly enhances the inverse design efficiency and efficacy of analog ICs but also facilitates the discovery of novel analog designs that surpass the performance limits of well-established human-engineered solutions. These results herald a promising future for data-driven analog EDA research, setting the stage for at-scale development and novel discovery of analog ICs.

Bio: Dr. Cao is currently a tenure-track assistant professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The George Washington University. Before joining academy, he was a Principal Engineer with TSMC Corporate Research. His research interests focus on machine learning and quantum computing, across the fields of VLSI design, computer architecture, electronic design automation (EDA), and hardware security. Dr. Cao is the recipient of the ISLPED Best Paper Award in 2022 and receives multiple best paper nominations in top EDA conferences, such as DATE and DAC.

Hosted by: Professor Hao Ye, ECE Department