NSF Workshop on EDA: Past, Present, and Future (Part 1)

EDA HAS BEEN AN IMMENSELY successful field, helping to manage the exponential increase in our capability to implement ICs that incorporate billions of transistors. At the same time, EDA has fostered and applied theories of computation and modeling, successfully combining them with practice. EDA has completely transformed the way that electronics engineers design and manufacture ICs. It was one of the earliest fields in computer science to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration, in which computer scientists and engineers successfully worked with electrical engineers, physicists, chemists, applied mathematics and optimization experts, and application domain specialists. In this two-part article, we review the July 2009 National Science Foundation (NSF) Workshop on EDA. The workshop had two objectives: first, to reflect on EDA’s success and determine whether EDA practices and methodology can influence other fields of computer science and be applied to other application domains; and second, to review the progress made under the National Design Initiative established in 2006 and evaluate what new directions and topics should be added to it. We present an overview of EDA, its funding history, a discussion of major challenges and related emerging technologies, and a look at how EDA experience might help in developing these technologies, along with associated educational aspects and challenges. We also consider EDA’s relation with computer science theorists and how to revive this collaboration. Finally, we present recommendations on how to promote EDA and help it meet the serious challenges it faces in the future. The recommendations are divided into three parts: promoting research, supporting educational programs, and encouraging enhanced collaboration with industry. Part 1 of this article, which appears here, discusses the workshop objective, EDA definition and history, and EDA funding sources. Part 2 will discuss the foundational areas of EDA, key EDA challenges, emerging areas that may benefit from the EDA technologies, educational perspective, theory and EDA, and, finally, recommendations to NSF.