Overview of 2020 CAD Contest at ICCAD

Ing-Chao Lin, Ulf Schlichtmann, Tsung-Wei Huang, Mark Po-Hung Lin

Abstract: The "CAD Contest at ICCAD" is a challenging, multi-month, research and development competition, focusing on advanced, real-world problems in the field of electronic design automation (EDA). Since 2012, the contest has been publishing many sophisticated circuit design problems, from system-level design to physical design, together with industrial benchmarks and solution evaluators. Contestants can participate in one or more problems provided by EDA/IC industry. The winners will be awarded at an ICCAD special session dedicated to this contest. Every year, the contest attracts more than a hundred teams, fosters productive industry-academia collaborations, and leads to hundreds of publications in top-tier conferences and journals. The 2020 CAD Contest hits a record high of 186 teams from all over the world, which represents more than 50% growth compared to last year. The contest keeps enhancing impact and boosting EDA research.