ISPD 2026 paper: Novel concepts to improve custom layout automation capabilities

We are delighted to present a custom layout automation related paper at the International Symposium on Physical Design (ISPD) in March 2026 in Bonn, Germany. The paper intents to introduce novel custom automation concepts that are implemented with the PCell Designer tool.

Paper title: Novel concepts to improve custom layout automation capabilities

Paper abstract:
Custom layout remains predominant in the design of today's analog, RF, MEMS, power-MOS, silicon photonics, package, and other non-digital integrated circuits. Automation in this domain is often impeded by inherent complexity, uncertainty, limited compatibility and capability, and established design paradigms. This paper offers a novel perspective and a set of interdependent concepts to address several long-standing custom automation challenges. We establish partitioning, abstraction, reification, uncertainty, and dialectic motion as theoretical foundations to overcome current limitations. Building on this, we derive and detail several generic, automation-enhancing elementary and practical application concepts, including context-consideration, contracts, abilities, mixins, communication, reactivity, and representation. We demonstrate these improved automation capabilities through various application examples and discuss their potential for future custom design automation approaches.

We plan to submit the GPDK-based application example library, the paper link, and the presentation slides to this community page in March 2026 timeframe.