Design technology co-optimization (DTCO) plays a critical role in achieving optimal power, performance, and area (PPA) for advanced semiconductor process development. Cell library characterization is essential in DTCO flow, but traditional methods are time-consuming and costly. To overcome these challenges, we propose a graph neural network (GNN)-based machine learning model for rapid and accurate cell library characterization. Our model incorporates cell structures and demonstrates high prediction accuracy across various process-voltage-temperature (PVT) corners and technology parameters. Validation with 512 unseen technology corners and over one million test data points shows accurate predictions of delay, power, and input pin capacitance for 33 types of cells, with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) ≤ 0.95% and a speedup of 100X compared with SPICE simulations. Additionally, we investigate system-level metrics such as worst negative slack (WNS), leakage power, and dynamic power using predictions obtained from the GNN-based model on unseen corners. Our model achieves precise predictions, with absolute error ≤ 3.0 ps for WNS, percentage errors ≤ 0.60% for leakage power, and ≤ 0.99% for dynamic power, when compared to golden reference. With the developed model, we further proposed a fine-grained drive strength interpolation methodology to enhance PPA for small-to-medium-scale designs, resulting in an approximate 1-3% improvement.

This paper proposes a fast system technology co-optimization (STCO) framework that optimizes power, performance, and area (PPA) for next-generation IC design, addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by novel materials and device architectures. We focus on accelerating the technology level of STCO using AI techniques, by employing graph neural network (GNN)-based approaches for both TCAD simulation and cell library characterization, which are interconnected through a unified compact model, collectively achieving over a 100X speedup over traditional methods. These advancements enable comprehensive STCO iterations with runtime speedups ranging from 1.9X to 14.1X and supports both emerging and traditional technologies.

Road extraction from remote sensing images has attracted widespread attention of researchers due to its crucial role in the fields of autopilot, urban planning, navigation, and other fields. However, the task becomes challenging as the roads in remote sensing images are easily occluded by obstacles such as shadows, buildings and trees. In this letter, a cascade fusion network for road extraction (CFRNet) in remote sensing images is proposed. Considering the lightweight characteristics of MobileNet block (MbBlock), it is used as the feature extraction module of the backbone network. To enable CFRNet to generate and fuse more features at multiscale, we design several cascade stages. Each stage includes a sub-backbone for feature extraction and a triple-level adaptive feature fusion (TAFF) module for feature fusion. This structure can more deeply and effectively fuse multiscale features with most of the parameters in the entire backbone. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed CFRNet significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art methods on the publicly available Istanbul City Road dataset and DeepGlobe Road dataset. Specifically, it achieves an intersection over union (IoU) of 89.76%, reflecting a 5.3% improvement on the Istanbul dataset, and 67.22% with a 0.98% enhancement on the DeepGlobe Road dataset. Our code is available athttps://github.com/XYQ1517/CFRNet.

Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE), integrating high performance silicon chips with multi-functional sensors and actuators on flexible substrates, can be intimately attached onto irregular surfaces without compromising their functionalities, thus enabling more innovations in healthcare, internet of things (IoTs) and various human-machine interfaces (HMIs). Recent developments on compact models and process design kits (PDKs) of flexible electronics have made designs of small to medium flexible circuits feasible. However, the absence of a unified model and comprehensive evaluation benchmarks for flexible electronics makes it infeasible for a designer to fairly compare different flexible technologies and to explore potential design options for a heterogeneous FHE design. In this paper, we present AutoFlex, a unified evaluation and design framework for flexible hybrid electronics, where device parameters can be extracted automatically and performance can be evaluated comprehensively from device levels, digital blocks to large-scale digital circuits. Moreover, a ubiquitous FHE sensor acquisition system, including a flexible multi-functional sensor array, scan drivers, amplifiers and a silicon based analog-to-digital converter (ADC), is developed to reveal the design challenges of a representative FHE system.