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A cross-institutional research team from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) and Giga Design Automation has won first place in Problem C at the 2025 ICCAD CAD[1] Contest, one of the world’s most representative competitions in Electronic Design Automation (EDA).

During the contest, participating teams were required to solve an industry-proposed problem, in this case “Incremental Placement Optimization Beyond Detailed Placement: Simultaneous Gate Sizing, Buffering, and Cell Relocation”. This required addressing a critical challenge in integrated physical circuit design by developing a synergistic solution that integrates placement optimisation, gate sizing and buffering techniques, tasking contestants with balancing timing, power and area. The contest featured a rigorous three-stage evaluation process – alpha, beta and final tests – where teams were ranked based on the performance of their source code.

Under the supervision of Professor Yu Bei from CUHK’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Dr Shao Yun from Giga Design Automation and Professor Wang Chun-yao from NTHU, the CUHK joint team delivered a solution that demonstrated exceptional engineering quality and efficient runtime performance across all phases. By implementing novel techniques that fuse GPU-based multi-objective optimisation with evolutionary algorithms, they secured their victory and a prize of NT$70,000. This remarkable achievement highlights the team’s technical excellence, cutting-edge research capabilities and impact in the EDA community.

About the ICCAD Contest

The CAD Contest at ICCAD is a challenging, multi-month research and development competition, focusing on advanced, real-world problems in the field of EDA. It is open to multi-person teams worldwide. Each year, the organising committee announces three challenges in different areas provided by industrial partners. Awards are presented during a special session at the ICCAD conference.

Since its inaugural year of 2012, the contest has attracted over 100 teams annually, fostering collaboration between industry, academia and research, and leading to numerous publications that advance the field of EDA.

Contest website: http://iccad-contest.org

List of winners: https://www.iccad-contest.org/2025/Winners.html

Attachment: List of winning team members

[1] Computer-aided Design (CAD) is the use of computer software to create, modify, analyse and optimise precise 2D drawings or 3D models of products, buildings and systems, replacing traditional hand-drafting to boost accuracy, efficiency and visualisation before physical creation. It is common in engineering, architecture and manufacturing.