IIT-Madras will soon have an inter-disciplinary ‘Centre of Excellence' that will showcase and facilitate research on innovative projects in embedded systems, VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) design and enabling technologies by fostering partnership with various industrial players, Kamakoti Veezhinathan, Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Madras, said here on Tuesday.
He was speaking at the inaugural session of the 24th international conference on VLSI Design that, along with the 10th international conference on Embedded Systems, seeks to facilitate discussions on designing embedded solutions for emerging markets in infrastructure, energy and automotives. Over 100 researchers, designers and industry experts will present their views on various aspects of electronic design automation and embedded systems that underpin the semiconductor industry. The three-day conference will also witness discussions on the challenges faced by India's growing VLSI sector. VLSI is demand-driven, and it is necessary to draw the attention of young engineers to opportunities in this area, said Professor Kamakoti, who is co-chairing the conference. “Instead of training students of engineering to be ‘industry-ready,' engineering colleges should equip them with the fundamentals of design and engineering, that would help them understand processes better,” he said.
The shortage of skilled faculty in the specialised fields including circuit design and VLSI is a serious concern, he added.
The conference will include technical paper sessions on latest research and embedded tutorials, industry presentation sessions, panel discussions, design contests and industrial exhibits.
While discussions and deliberations will focus on technology, manufacturing, markets, applications, finance and policies, the workshop on Reliability Aware System Design and Test (RASDAT) on Thursday and Friday will delve into the issues of data compression techniques, reliable computing, VLSI circuits and partitioning algorithms.
Stanford University professor Thomas H Lee said that the best is yet to come in ‘Embedded revolution.' “The increasing pervasiveness of microprocessors in all walks of life including communications, consumer care, industry, defence and health care shows that they are very much in the fabric of our existence, but just invisible,” he said.
