This paper summarizes my presentation at the ISPD 2026 Lifetime Achievement Session honoring Professor Jens Lienig.

To this day, the design of analog integrated circuits is a predominantly manual task, heavily reliant on the knowledge and intuition of human experts. Many current automation approaches aim to be holistic solutions, attempting to take the human out of the loop. This work, in turn, does not intend to replace human designers with algorithms, but support their qualities in the established flow. Here, the performance space of analog ICs is modeled by PVT-aware neural networks and visualized with parallel coordinate plots. Such a responsive visualization gives insights into the relations of parameters through interactive exploration where any parameter can be the cause while all others show the immediate effect. Thus, complex decision-making problems based on the experience of seasoned designers, such as circuit sizing or topology selection, are transformed into intuitive perceptual problems. Through the responsiveness and immediacy of the implementation, designers are encouraged to explore the entire performance space instead of basing all decisions on previous designs, never leaving the beaten path. A data generation and training procedure for surrogate models is outlined. Models for three operational amplifiers in three different technologies illustrate the applicability and feasibility of the presented approach. Additionally, a web-based demo, including all source code, is available for review.

This article discusses fundamental differences between analog and digital circuits from a design perspective. On this basis one can understand why the design flows of these two circuit types differ so greatly, notably with regard to their degree of automation.

The vast majority of state-of-the-art integrated circuits are mixed-signal chips. While the design of the digital parts of the ICs is highly automated, the design of the analog circuitry is largely done manually; it is very time-consuming; and prone to error. Among the reasons generally listed for this is often the attitude of the analog designer. The fact is that many analog designers are convinced that human experience and intuition are needed for good analog design. This is why they distrust the automated synthesis tools. This observation is quite correct, but this is only a symptom of the real problem. This paper shows that this phenomenon is caused by very concrete technical (and thus very rational) issues. These issues lie in the mode of operation of the typical optimization processes employed for the synthesizing tasks. I will show that the dilemma that arises in analog design with these optimizers is the root cause of the low level of automation in analog design. The paper concludes with a review of proposals for automating analog design.

Electromigration (EM) is becoming a progressively severe reliability challenge due to increased interconnect current densities. A shift from traditional (post-layout) EM verification to robust (pro-active) EM-aware design - where the circuit layout is designed with individual EM-robust solutions - is urgently needed. This tutorial will give an overview of EM and its effects on the reliability of present and future integrated circuits (ICs). We introduce the physical EM process and present its specific characteristics that can be affected during physical design. Examples of EM countermeasures which are applied in today's commercial design flows are presented. We show how to improve the EM-robustness of metallization patterns and we also consider mission profiles to obtain application-oriented current-density limits. The increasing interaction of EM with thermal migration is investigated as well. We conclude with a discussion of application examples to shift from the current post-layout EM verification towards an EM-aware physical design process. Its methodologies, such as EM-aware routing, increase the EM-robustness of the layout with the overall goal of reducing the negative impact of EM on the circuit's reliability.

Today, Human Computer Interaction is increasingly shifting from 'information worlds' towards 'experience worlds'. Still, much research of smart environment technologies focuses merely on functional aspects. This paper recognizes the relevance of smart environment technologies on emotional experiences. We developed a ubiquitous media technology in a smart kitchen environment to enhance the user's emotions: A touch and voice controlled Visual Atmosphere App (VAA) that can change kitchen ambience through different atmospheric themes by using visual projection on the kitchen surfaces and sound effects. In a quantitative and qualitative laboratory user study (N=30) we measured the impact of the VAA on the user's emotional state. Our findings show that this ubiquitous media technology in a smart environment can have a significant (p<0.05) effect on emotion enhancement. This result is even stronger if the smart environment fits the user's personal preferences. This study is a step towards emotional experiences caused by smart environment technologies to foster desired psychological states.

We present a new methodology for automatic selection and sizing of analog circuits demonstrated on the OTA circuit class. The methodology consists of two steps: a generic topology selection method supported by a “part-sizing” process and subsequent final sizing. The circuit topologies provided by a reuse library are classified in a topology tree. The appropriate topology is selected by traversing the topology tree starting at the root node. The decision at each node is gained from the result of the part-sizing, which is in fact a node-specific set of simulations. The final sizing is a simulation-based optimization. We significantly reduce the overall simulation effort compared to a classical simulation-based optimization by combining the topology selection with the part-sizing process in the selection loop. The result is an interactive user friendly system, which eases the analog designer's work significantly when compared to typical industrial practice in analog circuit design. The topology selection method and sizing process are implemented as a tool into a typical analog design environment. The design productivity improvement achievable by our method is shown by a comparison to other design automation approaches.

In recent years, new type of public displays have captured the interest of researchers-displays with the ability to move freely in three-dimensional space. We refer to such display systems as Airborne Multimedia Display (AMD) systems. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive analysis of requirements for developing interactive AMD applications based on extensive literature survey of the related work and from our own experience of flying AMD systems. We then outline the design and implementation of DroneCAST: a programming toolkit for developing AMD applications with remote delivery and control mechanism for multimedia content with IoT middleware as the core part of the system. Finally, we build a sample AMD application with the toolkit to further illustrate the applicability of the system.

Physical analog IC design has not been automated to the same degree as digital IC design. This shortfall is primarily rooted in the analog IC design problem itself, which is considerably more complex even for small problem sizes. Significant progress has been made in analog automation in several R&D target areas in recent years. Constraint engineering and generator-based module approaches are among the innovations that have emerged. Our paper will first present a brief review of the state of the art of analog layout automation. We will then introduce active and open research areas and present two visions -- a "continuous layout design flow" and a "bottom-up meets top-down design flow" -- which could significantly push analog design automation towards its goal of analog synthesis.

In this article we describe the creation and exhibit of a participatory installation performance. Graffiti Dance allows the audience to graffiti paint with light onto a buildings side and receive immediate local feedback from a set of dancers choreographed to respond to the movement on the public display. The installation is a holistic experience using a plurality of sources (syndicated news Images and Twitter) and local influences (from mobile uploads) that reflect our understanding of the world around us, how we speak out in public forums, and how we interpret the creative act. We present the results of the performance from the perspective of the audience and the dancers and present new directions for future performances.

Graffiti Dance creates a collaborative space for the voice of a local community to express a statement about the world around them. Several participants become graffiti artists, painting with an arsenal of lights via virtual graffiti mechanisms. Colors, images, and terms from popular sources (syndicated news Images & Twitter) and local influences (from mobile uploads) are suggested for use in the graffiti. Participants and viewers watch the graffiti's creation and receive feedback provided by a set of dancers who interact with the virtual (light) and physical space. Graffiti Dance presents a holistic experience using a plurality of sources that reflects our understanding of the world around us, how we speak out in public forums, and how we interpret the creative act.

This paper presents an overview of a compact hands-on tutorial, which introduces a novel way of creative mobile phone programming for multi-media that is easy to learn and fun to do. Pedagogically fine-tuned, it teaches the programming of a large set of mobile phone features including camera, accelerometer sensor for gesture based interfaces, sound, video, messaging, telephony, location, Bluetooth, graphics, Wi-fi, GPS and networking. Developing applications on the mobile platform was time consuming in the past and required a steep learning curve. Also, mobile platforms have often been closed or were too restricted. Mobile Python, also known as 'Python for S60' - in short PyS60 - offers a crucial turning point here. It provides a Python execution environment on the mobile phone. Nokia Research developed PyS60 as an Open Source Project [9] starting from 2004. It allows developing mobile applications even by novice programmers, artists and people from the creative communities. In a matter of days, people can build powerful applications based on their own ideas and contribute them to the mobile space.

This paper presents MobiToss, a novel application for creating and sharing mobile multimedia art with an off-the-shelf mobile phone equipped with built-in accelerometer sensors allowing gesture control. The user first takes a photo or captures a video with the phone and then using a 'throwing' gesture transfers the clip onto a large public display for instant viewing and manipulation by tilting the phone in different directions. The system augments the user-created clip with other items such as music or brand labels and the encoded clip is automatically sent back to the phone as a personal artefact of the event. The clip is also uploaded to a dedicated community website for sharing the created multimedia art with others. MobiToss could be deployed e.g. in clubs, pubs and concerts as a participatory VJ-tool. In addition to the design the paper presents the results of a preliminary user evaluation, which highlight the novel art experience provided by MobiToss.

This compact hands-on tutorial introduces a novel way of creative mobile phone programming for multi-media that is easy to learn and fun. It was created in 2006 by the author of this paper and was published as a free online tutorial at http://www.mobilenin.com/pys60/menu.htm. Pedagogically fine-tuned, it teaches the programming of a large set of mobile phone features including camera, sound, video, messaging, telephony, location, Bluetooth, graphics, Wi-fi, GPS and networking. The problem in the past has been that developing applications on the mobile platform was time consuming and required a steep learning curve. Also, mobile platforms have often been closed or were too restricted. Mobile Python, also known as 'Python for S60' (PyS60) offers a crucial turning point here. It provides a Python execution environment for the mobile phone. It is developed by Nokia Research as an Open Source Project. This tutorial uses PyS60 in combination with a set of code examples, turning it into a ready working toolkit. It allows developing mobile applications even by novice programmers, artists and people from the creative communities. In a matter of days, people can build powerful applications based on their own ideas and contribute to the mobile space. This tutorial has been taught in more than 40 occasions in academia and industry and in more than 17 countries during the last 2 years. Among these are Yahoo Research Berkeley, Nokia, NTU Taiwan, MIT and Stanford University.

This paper studies the design rationale and evaluation of an urban storytelling game called Story Mashup. In the game ubiquitous computing infrastructure is utilized to facilitate real-time interaction between mobile and web users. Textual stories written in the web by certain people are illustrated by other people taking matching photos with camera phones. Complete stories are then displayed on a large public display and on the web. To carry out a thorough empirical evaluation of the game design in a real world setting, the game was played in New York in September 2006 with 180 players and by people in the internet around the world. The results show that the adopted iterative design process succeeded in achieving the goals set for usability, user experience and game stimulation.

This paper introduces a novel and creative approach for coupling multimedia art with a non-conventional distributed human-computer interface for multi-user interactive entertainment. The proposed MobiLenin system allows a group of people to interact simultaneously with a multi-track music video shown on a large public display using their personal mobile phones, effectively empowering the group with the joint authorship of the video. The system is realized with a client-server architecture which includes server-driven real-time control of the client UI to guarantee ease of use and a lottery mechanism as an incentive for interaction. Our analysis of the findings of an empirical user evaluation conducted in a true environment of use shows that the MobiLenin system is successful, addressing many of the challenges identified in the literature. The proposed system offers a new form of interactive entertainment for pubs and other public places, and the underlying architecture provides a framework for realizing similar installations with different types of multimedia content.

The negative effect of electromigration on signal and power line lifetime and functional reliability is an increasingly important problem for the physical design of integrated circuits. We present a new approach that addresses this electromigration issue by considering current density and inhomogeneous current-flow within arbitrarily shaped metallization patterns during physical design. Our proposed methodology is based on a post-route modification of critical layout structures that utilizes current-density data from a previously performed current-density verification. It is especially tailored to overcome the lack of current-flow consideration within existing routing tools. We also present experimental results obtained after successfully integrating our methodology into a commercial IC design flow.