ACE² Lab (AI, Circuits & EDA · Automated Circuit Engineering) at North Dakota State University is dedicated to tackling three converging semiconductor challenges: transistor density limits, ASIC design cost explosion, and LLM inference scaling. Our research spans process-aware EDA frameworks for Monolithic 3D ICs, machine-learning-driven ASIC design automation, and custom Compute-in-Memory ASIC accelerators for efficient LLM inference at scale and on edge devices.

We collaborate with academic and industry partners across the U.S. and internationally, with funding from NSF CAREER, NSF CRII, USDA NIFA, and ND EPSCoR, totaling over $6.97M in competitive grants.

We focus on the following research thrusts:

• EDA for Monolithic 3D IC (M3D-IC) — process-aware placement, routing, MIV utilization, and thermal modeling across stacked tiers
• ML for ASIC Design Automation — graph neural networks, reinforcement learning, and LLMs for RTL generation and physical design
• ASIC for LLM Acceleration — Compute-in-Memory architectures for transformer inference on edge hardware

Prospective Students

We are actively recruiting motivated Ph.D. and M.S. students with backgrounds in electrical or computer engineering, computer science, or related fields. Research areas include IC design automation, hardware for machine learning, monolithic 3D IC EDA, and power delivery networks.

To apply, please email umamaheswara.tida@ieee.org with:

• CV / Resume
• Unofficial transcripts
• Brief statement of research interest
• Preferred research area (IC design automation, HW for ML, 3D IC EDA, PDN)
• GRE Quantitative score > 165