Yao-wen Chang

Biography

Yao-Wen Chang was born in Chia-Yi, Taiwan in 1966. He received the B.S. degree in Computer Science and Information Engineering from National Taiwan University (NTU) in 1988, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993 and 1996, respectively.  He is an IEEE Fellow and is currently the IEEE CEDA Vice President of Conferences. Currently, he is Deputy Vice President for Academic Affairs (副教務長), NTU, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Development, NTU, and Distinguished Professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering, NTU, Taipei, Taiwan. He was an associate dean of the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 2012-2016, and the director/chairman of the Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering of NTU from 2010 to 2013. Dr. Chang was a visiting professor of Waseda University (早稻田大學) in Japan from 2005 to 2010 and a visiting scholar of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2014. He was a 2nd Lieutenant during his compulsory military service from 1988 to 1990, a Research Assistant in the Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica, Taiwan from 1990 to 1991, and a Teaching/Research Assistant in the Department of Computer Sciences, the University of Texas at Austin from 1992 to 1996. In the summers of 1994 and 1995, he was a Research Staff Member in the VLSI Design Group at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York and a teaching assistant in the VLSI Design Automation Group at IBM, Austin, Texas, respectively. From 1996 to 2001, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. His current research interests include electronic design automation (with emphases on physical design and manufacturability) and combinatorial optimization. He has been working very closely with the semiconductor industry on projects and has co-authored a book on routing (Springer, 2007), co-edited a book on electronic design automation (Morgan Kaufmann, 2009; 934 pages), and published over 270 ACM/IEEE conference/journal papers in these areas, including a few highly cited works on floorplanning, placement, routing, manufacturability, and FPGA. His NTUplace3 placer was the core engine of the popular Digital Custom Placer of SpringSoft, acquired by the #1 EDA vendor, Synopsys, with US $406M dollars in 2012. He was ranked #1 worldwide among 40K+ researchers by the Microsoft Academic Search Database for Recent Five-Year Citations in the Hardware and Architecture Domain during November 2011 -- March 2012.  Dr. Chang received four awards at the 50th ACM/IEEE DAC in 2013 for the 1st Most Papers in the 5th Decade (34 DAC papers in the 5th decade; #1 worldwide), Most Prolific Author (at least 6 papers) in a Single Year (2012, 2013), DAC Prolific Author Award (40 Club; now 58 papers, the #3 all-time DAC prolific author), one of the Longest Publication Streaks (15 years from 1999 to 2013; now 19 years, the #2 all-time DAC history). Dr. Chang is a 1st-place winner of six recent major ACM/IEEE EDA contests, including the 2015 ACM ISPD Blockage-Aware Detailed Routing-Driven Placement Contest, the 2013 IEEE CAD Contest @ ICCAD (Legalization and Detailed Placement), the 2012 ACM/IEEE DAC Routability-Driven Placement Contest, the 2012 ACM ISPD Discrete Gate Sizing Contest, the 2011 IEEE CEDA PATOS Timing Analysis Contest, and the 2009 ACM ISPD Clock Network Synthesis Contest. He has also received 15 other top-3 contest awards during the past decade. He is a recipient of eight Best Paper Awards (2017 ACM/IEEE DAC, 2010 and 1995 IEEE ICCD, etc.), the 2007 IEEE/ACM ICCAD Professor Margarida Jacome Memorial Award, and two Best-in-Track Papers at the 2017 IEEE/ACM ICCAD. He has received 24 Best Paper Award Nominations from top international conferences, including DAC (6 times), ICCAD (4 times), and ISPD (5 times) since 2000. He has received many research awards, such as the 2007, 2010, and 2013 Distinguished Research Awards (highest honor), Contract Research Fellow (2016--2018), and the 2004 Dr. Wu Ta You Memorial Award, all from Ministry of Science and Technology (formerly National Science Council) of Taiwan, and the 2010, 2012, and 2013 IBM Faculty Awards, the 2009 Distinguished EE Professor from the CIEE, the 2004 MXIC Young Chair Professorship and the 2015 MXIC Chair Professorship from the MXIC Corp, the inaugural Research Achievement Award from National Taiwan University in 2004, distinguished teaching award in 2013 (highest honor for top 1% teachers)/excellent teaching awards (eight times in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; ranked #1 in the department for students' teaching surveys in 2004, 2005, 2009, 2013) from National Taiwan University, and excellent teaching award from National Chiao Tung University in 2000 (ranked #1 in the Department for this inaugural award). 

Research Interest

Electronic Design Automation, VLSI Physical Design, Design for Manufacturability