“Scaling” the impact of EDA education Preliminary findings from the CCC workshop series on extreme scale design automation

Abstract

The breakdown of Dennard scaling implies radical changes in the design, integration, manufacturing and deployment of new electronic systems. These changes, along with labor-force and macro-economic trends, undermine the status quo in the semiconductor and electronic design automation (EDA) fields. Of particular concern is a fairly static and aging workforce and a decline in new students interested in these fields. Recognizing the dramatic changes afoot, a series of Computing Community Consortium (CCC) sponsored workshops have been organized to identify key steps to take, to secure the future growth of the electronics industry. This paper shares some preliminary findings from the first of these workshops emphasizing challenges in finding and preparing the next generation of electronic design professionals.