Five Outstanding Innovators Under 40 Honored at the 54th Design Automation Conference
Engineers from major vendors to academia recognized for contributions to EDA
AUSTIN, Texas—June 19, 2017—Celebrating the present and future of innovation, the Design Automation Conference announced the five winners of the inaugural Under-40 Innovators Award at the 54th DAC here.
The winners, from both innovative companies as well as universities, were announced during the conferences opening keynote session at the 54th gathering of DAC, the premier conference devoted to the design and automation of electronic systems.
The Under-40 Innovators Award is sponsored by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Electronic Systems Design Alliance (ESDA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The award recognizes the top five young innovators, who already have made a significant impact in the field of design and automation of electronics.
"Innovation is clearly thriving among younger engineers in the design automation community," said Mac McNamara, General Chair of the 54th DAC. "EDA continues to attract some of the best and brightest young innovators because of the complex but particularly exciting problems the industry confronts year after year as it invents the future."
The inaugural honorees are:
John Arthur, Research Staff Member and Hardware Manager, IBM Research – Almaden
Arthur, working in the Brain Inspired Computing Group at IBM Research, designs large-scale neuromorphic chips and systems as well as algorithms to train them. His work includes Stanford's Neurogrid and most recently IBM's TrueNorth project.
Paul Cunningham, Vice President of R&D, Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Cunningham is responsible for front-end digital design tools. Hejoined Cadence in 2011 through the acquisition of Azuro, a clock concurrent optimization company where he was a co-founder and CEO.
DouglasDensmore, Associate Professor, Boston Univ.
Densmore, who works in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Boston University, creates EDA-inspired software tools for synthetic biology. He is a founding member of the BU Biological Design Center (BDC), head of the NSF’s “Living Computing Project” and a Senior Member of the IEEE and ACM.
Yongpan Liu, Associate Professor, Tsinghua Univ.
Dr. Liu’s research interests include design automation and emerging circuits and systems for the Internet of Things (IoT). He designed the first nonvolatile processor used in both academia and industry. He received IEEE Micro Top Pick16 and best paper awards of HPCA15 and ASPDAC17.
SasikanthManipatruni, Senior Staff Physicist/Engineer,Intel Corp.
Dr. Manipatruni merges physics based design with the experimental demonstration of spintronic/photonic/quantum devices for technologies beyond advanced CMOS. He has authored more than 50 scientific articles and holds 80 patents spanning nanophotonics, medical imaging, quantum & beyond CMOS computing. He also coaches middle/high schoolers for Physics Olympiad.
The honorees will discuss their work and the nature of innovation at a DAC panel Monday, June 19, 3 p.m., CT, moderated by EE Times Editor-in-Chief Dylan McGrath, in the DAC Pavilion.
For additional information on the award, and the Design Automation Conference visit
About DAC
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is recognized as the premier event for the design of electronic circuits and systems, and for electronic design automation (EDA) and silicon solutions. A diverse worldwide community representing more than 1,000 organizations attends each year, represented by system designers and architects, logic and circuit designers, validation engineers, CAD managers, senior managers and executives to researchers and academicians from leading universities. Close to 60 technical sessions selected by a committee of electronic design experts offer information on recent developments and trends, management practices and new products, methodologies and technologies. A highlight of DAC is its exhibition and suite area with approximately 200 of the leading and emerging EDA, silicon, intellectual property (IP) and design services providers. The conference is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Electronic Systems Design Alliance (ESDA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and is supported by ACM's Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM SIGDA).
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