Design Tools forEmerging Technologies

The rapidlyexpandingdiversity of technology available atthenanoscale isdisrupting theexisting transistor- centric microelectronics design paradigm, resulting innearly decade-long delaysbetweenprototype demonstration and technology deployment. Thekeytoreducing theseinnovation- inhibiting delays istodevelop algorithmic approaches thatcan startwithfirstprinciples baseddescriptions of novel nanotechnology and rapidlyand reliably synthesize manufacturable designs. Design tools areevolving this direction, withnew extremely efficient yetcustomizable physical simulators, automatic paramterized low-order modelextraction, andeverimproving algorithms forrobust optimization-new techniques thatgenerate manufacturable designs byoptimizing bothsystemperformance androbustness tomanufacturing variations. Inthis paperwegive afewexamples ofthecoupling of suchapproaches, butmostlyoffer pointers toliterature for researchers interested incontributed tothis rapidly growing field ofcoupled simulation androbust optimization. Keywords-optimization, simulation, nanotechnology, computer- aided design