Project Manager

The R&D activities performed in THERMINATOR have produced new modeling and simulation approaches, design techniques, methods and algorithms applicable at different stages of the design cycle and for different families of electronic devices and applications, some of which lead to pre-competitive EDA tools. The innovative solutions originating from the R&D effort have been fully worked out and their effectiveness assessed and thoroughly demonstrated. More specifically, the scientific and technical results at the conclusion of the project can be summarized as follows: • New modeling capabilities to support accurate circuit thermal analysis and simulation. • Innovative thermal-aware design techniques, methodologies and prototype tools for controlling, compensating and managing thermally-induced effects on parameters such as timing, (dynamic and leakage) power, reliability and yield. • Demonstration of the accuracy and ease of integration within existing design flows of the new models by validation against measured data obtained on ad-hoc silicon structures. • Demonstration of the applicability and effectiveness of the new design solutions through manufacturing of test-chips featuring leading-edge silicon technology, as available from some of the project partners. • Demonstration of the usability and effectiveness of the new design methodologies and tools by their application to industry-strength design cases made available by some of the project partners. In other words we can measure the success of the project outcomes with the following measures 1 – The THERMINATOR THERMAL MODELS have an accuracy of 90% with respect to measurements. 2 – The FLOWS put in place to create such models, or the simulations made possible by the above models, on average, reduce the specific portion of design cycle time of 20%. The solutions cover at different level of abstraction and in the different design domains the full scenario of today industrial silicon design challenges paving the way for further integrated analysis. At program level (administrative level) the project being so ambitious and the consortium so wide, it has been a great challenge to manage it but at the end the experience has been enriching. The cooperation has been satisfactory even if in some cases it has to be done in clusters given the large scope of the activities. The experiences done in each of the design domains have been shared across the domains. The Benefits from participation have been many from a scientific, industrial and networking point of view. The fact large semiconductor companies were working side by side also with the state of art EDA vendors has given the reciprocal benefit of : o Keeping up with major technological developments o Exploring different technological opportunities o Gain a window into 'state of the art' technology o Networking / find new partners o Promote user/producer interactions On the top of this the opportunity of Obtain funding for the company R&D activities has protected the research activities in Europe and has also secured the cost competitiveness of the European researchers in comparison with the emerging regions such as far east and South America.