Designing Robust Systems with Uncertain Information

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Giovanni De Micheli, Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Computer Science Stanford University

Abstract

Forthcoming technologies for realizing microelectronic systems will be characterized by a large spread of physical parameters. At the same time, systems will experience widely varying environmental conditions according to the time, place and mode of use. The design challenges are direct consequences of the technological progress, and are due to the extremely small nature of electronic devices, the extremely large complexity of systems, and the new unchartered territory set by novel technologies. System robustness and dependability will require the use of new design paradigms to cope with designers' imprecise knowledge of the physical properties of devices and interconnect as well as incomplete knowledge of data traffic.

New, aggressive design methods may address the problem by using self-calibrating circuits and error-resilient computation and communication. Such methods will be based on a design paradigm shift: electrical level information may happen to be corrupted, yet systems will yield reliable services because means are provided to correct for such errors. This keynote will address some of the major challenges of future design technologies and propose new approaches to address them.

Curriculum Vitae

Giovanni De MicheliGiovanni De Micheli is Professor of Electrical Engineering, and by courtesy, of Computer Science at Stanford University. His research interests include several aspects of design technologies for integrated circuits and systems, with particular emphasis on synthesis, system-level design, hardware/software co-design and low-power design. He is author of: Synthesis and Optimization of Digital Circuits, McGraw-Hill, 1994, co-author and/or co-editor of six other books and of over 270 technical articles. He is member of the technical advisory board of several EDA companies, including Magma Design Automation, Coware and Aplus Design Technologies. He was member of the technical advisory board of Ambit Design Systems.

Dr. De Micheli is the recipient of the 2003 IEEE Emanuel Piore Award for contributions to computer-aided synthesis of digital systems. He is a Fellow of ACM and IEEE. He received the Golden Jubilee Medal for outstanding contributions to the IEEE CAS Society in 2000. He received the 1987 IEEE Transactions on CAD/ICAS Best Paper Award and two Best Paper Awards at the Design Automation Conference, in 1983 and in 1993.

He is President of the IEEE CAS Society. He was Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on CAD/ICAS in 1987-2001.

Dr. De Micheli was the Program Chair and General Chair of the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in 1996-1997 and 2000 respectively. He was the Program and General Chair of the International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD) in 1988 and 1989 respectively. He was also co-director of the NATO Advanced Study Institutes on Hardware/Software Co-design, held in Tremezzo, Italy, 1995 and on Logic Synthesis and Silicon Compilation, held in L'Aquila, Italy, 1986. He is a founding member of the ALaRI institute at Universita' della Svizzera Italiana (USI), in Lugano, Switzerland, where he is currently scientific counselor.