Open-Source EDA Birds-of-a-Feather: Open-Source EDA, Data and Collaboration Summit
| Tuesday, July 28, 2026, 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM | Long Beach Convention Center, Mtg Room 104C |
This “Open-Source EDA, Data and Collaboration” Birds-of-a-Feather session is the seventh in a series that began at DAC 2018. As semiconductor design confronts the mounting complexities of advanced nodes, Augmented AI is transitioning from an experimental concept to an indispensable engineering co-pilot. The DAC 2026 session explores the transformative intersection of AI, open-source software and hardware, and the engineers who build them, serving as an informal forum for anyone to share ideas and the latest updates on our open-source ecosystem.
Our goal is to have a fast-paced evening of rapid-fire presentations and dedicated Q&A panels from academic researchers, industry practitioners, and open-source maintainers. Topics of interest include Augmented AI in EDA—moving beyond traditional black-box hyperparameter search to include agentic workflows and AI-accelerated physical design—alongside updates on open-source ecosystem governance, robust PDK development, and open-source AMS design flows, plus insights into benchmarking and industrial usage.
By integrating workforce development into these modern workflows, we will discuss how the hardware and software design talent gap is being bridged by reshaping university curricula. In an era of agents and “Augmented AI,” we must ask: how many new engineers are actually needed, and how does their training evolve when the “co-pilot” handles the baseline?
The session will also provide critical state-of-the-ecosystem updates, including the latest on global open-source initiatives. We will conclude with The “Co-Pilot” Afterparty—an unstructured networking session with food and drinks to engage in unfiltered community discussion. This BoF is designed as an open forum to surface challenges and find new collaborations.
Everyone is welcome, and admission is free! (If you have any questions or require a visa support letter, please contact Yiting Liu (yil375@ucsd.edu) and/or Oleg Levitsky (olevitsky@precisioninno.com).)
Agenda (tentative)
I. Opening [6:30 PM - 6:40 PM]
- Welcome and Introduction
- Andrew B. Kahng, UCSD
II. General Updates from the Community [6:40 PM - 7:10 PM]
- Open Silicon in Action: What’s New from CHIPS Alliance
- Michael Gielda, VP of Business Development at Antmicro
- Update on OpenROAD and The OpenROAD Initiative
- Tom Spyrou, Precision Innovations
- ECOS Studio: From Open PDKs to Open-Source SoC Tapeouts
- Tianji Liu, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
III. Open-Source Ecosystem & Infrastructure [7:10 PM - 7:50 PM]
- SCCAD-3N and OpenROAD Enablement for Open-Source Advanced-Node Design
- Sung Kyu Lim, USC
- GT2N: An Open-Source 2nm Nanosheet PDK
- Dongwon Jang, Georgia Tech
- Updates on 3D ODB
- Cho Moon, Precision Innovations
- Security Challenges and Opportunities in the Open-Source EDA Ecosystem
- Ishraq Tashdid, University of Central Florida
Break [7:50PM - 8:00 PM]
IV. Augmented AI and Physical Design Workflows [8:00 PM - 8:40 PM]
- Open Benchmarks and Data Generation for LLM-Assisted RTL and Design Automation
- Zhiyao Xie, HKUST
- Benchmarking Standards for Open-Source EDA Infrastructure
- Ioannis Savidis, Drexel University
- Four-State Logic and Verification Support in Verilator
- Krzysztof Bieganski, Antmicro/ CHIPS Alliance
- Silimate Updates: Open-Source Contributions to OpenSTA, ABC, Yosys and EDA Utilities
- Akash Levy, Silimate
V. Workforce Development and Training [8:40 PM - 9:00 PM]
- Open-Source EDA and PDKs for Teaching and Research in the PULP Group
- Arpan Suravi Prasad, ETH Zurich / PULP Group
- From ESP to OSCAR: Building Open Platforms for Research, Education and Collaboration
- Luca Carloni, Columbia University
Panel Q\&A: Workforce Development, Training and Open-Source EDA Education [9:00 PM - 9:10 PM]
- Panelists: Vidya, Mehdi, Davit
- Open to additional participants
VI. Lightning Round and Closing Remarks [9:10 PM - 9:30 PM]
- From ENCODE and DECODE to DOE-SC Open-Source EDA Prototyping
- Antonino Tumeo, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
VII. Post-Session Networking [9:30 PM Onwards]
- Unstructured networking session with refreshments
Registration
There is no registration fee. However, please fill in this Google Form to indicate your interests and whether you would like to share something with other attendees. Also, an important note: This year, attendees MUST have some kind of DAC-2026 badge (the “I Love DAC” badge is free, but you must obtain it in advance!) in order to reach the meeting room. Please make sure that you obtain a badge so that you can attend!
Organization
It takes a village! If you would like to help with co-organization or support for this meeting (A/V, food, other logistics :-)) please contact Yiting Liu (yil375@ucsd.edu) and/or Oleg Levitsky (olevitsky@precisioninno.com)