ISPD 2013 expert designer/user session (eds)

We have newly introduced the expert designer/user session (EDS) to ISPD in 2013, which is tailor-made for designers and users of physical design (PD) tools. Since ISPD is the premium PD-centric symposium, it is a great opportunity for designers, tools developers and PD researchers to interact and learn from each other. The benefit of including EDS in ISPD's program is twofold.

(1) It provides a focus session and friendly environment, which stimulates technical discussion among industry and academia. Experienced PD users would have a chance to get exposed to the detail of the latest state-ofthe- art research in the field of physical design.

(2) The session brings in designers experience of PD tools, which includes opportunities and challenges from users' prospective. This would directly drive the PD research direction in the future, and tighten the bond between users, researchers and developers in the PD community. In turn, it eventually helps improving the PD tools from EDA vendors.

In this Expert Designer Session (EDS), we carefully selected and invited a list of six expert designers/users around the world to present their on-hand design and tool experience.

The topics covered include tree-mesh clock distribution, large block placement, place-and-route for custom designs, layout dependent effects, metal-based ECO, and clock aware timing closure flow.

The format of EDS consists of an oral presentation session, immediately followed by a poster session. This encourages deep discussion and professional networking between PD users, researchers and developers.