Early Career Award

Professor Markov will be recognized for his outstanding contributions to algorithms, methodologies and software for the physical design of integrated circuits in the early stages of his career during the International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD) in November.

"Igor Markov received high praise from numerous individuals supporting his nomination for this new award," remarks John Darringer, president of CEDA. "Each mentioned the vast number of contributions he's made across a wide range of problems, his high level of energy, dedication to his research and his versatility."

Defining his research as computers that make computers, Professor Markov was nominated for this award by his peers Professors Sachin Sapatnekar from the University of Minnesota and Andrew Kahng, currently of the University of California, San Diego, who was also his graduate advisor. They described his varied accomplishments as "essential and lasting contributions to algorithms, methodologies and software for circuit partitioning, placement, floorplanning, routing and physical synthesis."

In particular, Professor Markov.s Capo fixed-die placer for standard-cell layouts has been widely used by electronic design automation (EDA) companies and university researchers. According to Chuck Alpert, manager of the Design Productivity Group at IBM Austin Research Laboratory, Capo advanced state of the art. "Besides being a high-quality and robust min-cut placer, Capo also set the standard for open access. Capo was not only a wonderful technical contribution to the design automation community, it helped to spawn the next-generation of placement research through its widespread availability."

With source code being publicly available, Capo became a fundamental component of other research efforts, adds Alpert. For example, a designer could test the viability of a clustering algorithm by seeing if the clusters helped Capo obtain better placements. When force-directed placement techniques became popular, Capo formed a baseline that could be used to validate the results of new placers.

"From the time Igor Markov joined Andrew Kahng's group at UCLA, you could tell he was going to make an impact on EDA," says Bill Halpin, principal engineer at Synopsys. "His strong mathematical background, problem-solving skills and energy were immediately evident. While Igor's many contributions in academic research have been well noted, his contributions to industry have also been significant. He has consulted for Intel's EDA team and spent part of his sabbatical at Synplicity, where we used Capo in our Structured ASIC product with very good results. His Capo placer has enabled a number of EDA startup companies to get off the ground. Igor helped get the GRSC bookshelf effort started, and his DUDE tool has improved the quality of EDA conferences by allowing organizers to easily detect duplicate submissions to DAC, ICCAD and DATE. Finally, he has mentored a number of outstanding students that I have worked with."

"Igor Markov has leveraged the Capo platform to train a skilled generation of new researchers in the field of EDA placement," remarks Michael Riepe, senior software engineer at Achronix Semiconductor Corporation. "In the process, he has pushed Capo to a level of completeness and robustness suitable for industrial use. And, he has generously contributed his source code and his time, making Capo available as an experimental platform for others to extend, and providing an excellent role model for other researchers."

Professor Markov has co-authored more than 150 refereed publications, some receiving Best Paper awards at the Design Automation and Test in Europe Conference (DATE) and the International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD). Professor Markov was awarded the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CAS) Donald O. Pederson award for Best Paper in IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design (TCAD). Additionally, he is the recipient of a Design Automation Conference (DAC) Fellowship; an Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM SIGDA) Outstanding New Faculty Award; an ACM SIGDA Technical Leadership Award; a National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award; an IBM Partnership Award; a Synplicity Inc. Faculty Award; and a Microsoft A. Richard Newton Breakthrough Research Award. He was also honored by the University of Michigan with the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) Department Outstanding Achievement Award.

Professor Markov received a Master of Arts degree in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA. He is a member of the editorial board of the Communications of the ACM, the ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems, IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE TCAD and IEEE Design & Test. Currently, he is a senior member of ACM and IEEE, and a member of the Executive Board of ACM SIGDA.