10th Cadence Design Contest 2015 Successfully Organized in India

Cadence India organized the 10th edition of the Cadence University Program’s flagship initiative - Cadence Design Contest, in 2015. Launched in 2006, the Cadence Design Contest provides engineering students with an opportunity to showcase their talent in electronic design. The Cadence Design Contest is held for two categories: Master’s and Bachelor’s, and is open for all colleges enrolled as part of the Cadence India University Program. A winner and runner up are selected from each category.

This year, the contest attracted 121 abstracts from the best of electronic design talent in academia. Forty-one colleges spread throughout India participated. There were 76 abstracts for the Bachelor’s Category and 45 for the Master’s.

Projects are judged by an expert committee consisting of Cadence and industry experts on criteria including inventiveness, complexity, feasibility, breadth of design, effective tool usage, and presentation. The expert committee was presided by Mr. Padmanabhan, Founder – InnovationHub Technologies, Mr. Mrinal Das, V.P. Engineering - Sankalp Semiconductor, and from Cadence, Dr. S. Rajesh, AE Director, and Mr. Chayan Majumder, Sr. Principal Product Engineer.

The judges were overwhelmed with the design talent on display and had a tough time choosing the best in each category.

The winner in the Master’s category was Aditya Chowdary, a student of Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, under the mentorship of Prof. Gaurab Banerjee. The topic was “Design of X-Band FMCW Radar Transceiver In 130nm CMOS Technology”, and the application was for a system that can help stop speeding vehicles as they approach an obstacle.

The winner in the Bachelor’s category was the team of Deepak Kumar Tripathy and Gyana Ranjan Panigrahy, from National Institute of Science and Technology in Berhampur. The topic was “Automated Parking System Design using Cadence Solutions”, under the mentorship of Prof. (Dr.) Ajit Kumar Panda.

Not only does the contest provide an opportunity to students to showcase their innovation and design talent, it is also a great platform to interact with Industry experts and get recognition from Industry. The fact that the winners went home with an iPad Mini each, and the guides with iPad Air, adds the icing to the cake. 

Anton Klotz