ACM SIGDA supports the global electronic design automation (EDA) community through a broad and evolving portfolio of activities spanning research exchange, technical challenges, professional development, demonstrations, and community outreach. Organized in close collaboration with leading international conferences, these programs are designed to foster innovation, encourage cross-sector engagement between academia and industry, and strengthen the EDA ecosystem across career stages.

SIGDA-sponsored activities serve a diverse audience—including students, early-career researchers, faculty, and industry practitioners—and span the full research and professional pipeline, from early research exploration and hands-on system building to career development, mentorship, and community building. Together, these activities provide inclusive platforms for showcasing ideas, developing skills, and advancing the state of the art in design automation.

Research & Scholarly Exchange

Activities in this category focus on research presentation, scholarly discussion, and mentorship. They provide platforms for students to share early-stage or ongoing work, receive feedback from experts, and gain visibility within the global EDA research community. These programs play a critical role in training students to communicate research ideas effectively and to engage with peers and senior researchers.

Student Research Competition (SRC) at ICCAD

ACM SIGDA is organizing the Student Research Competition (SRC) with the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD). The SRC is an internationally recognized venue enabling undergraduate and graduate students who are ACM members to:

1. Experience the research world — for many undergraduates, this is a first!
2. Share research results and exchange ideas with other students, judges, and conference attendees.
3. Rub shoulders with academic and industry luminaries.
4. Understand the practical applications of their research.
5. Perfect their communication skills.
6. Receive prizes and gain recognition from ACM and the greater computing community.

Student Research Forum (SRF) at ASPDAC

The Student Research Forum at the ASP-DAC (SRF@ASPDAC) is renovated from a traditional poster session hosted by ACM SIGDA for PhD students to present and discuss their dissertations with experts in the design automation community. Starting from 2015, the forum includes both PhD and MS students, offering great opportunity for the students to establish contacts for their future career. In addition, the forum helps the companies and academic institutes to get an overview of the latest research and discover the extraordinary candidates for their employment.

PhD Forum at DAC

The Ph.D. Forum at DAC is a poster session hosted by ACM SIGDA for Ph.D. students to present and discuss their dissertation research with people in the EDA community. It has become one of the premier forums for Ph.D. students in design automation to get feedback on their research. It enables the industry and other academicians to see latest top academic work and have access to best graduating students in one place. Participation in the forum is through a scientific evaluation by an expert committee consisting of academia and industry. The forum is open to all members of the design automation community and is free-of-charge. It is co-located with DAC; DAC registration is not required in order to attend this event.

PhD Forum at DATE

The PhD Forum at DATE is a poster session hosted by the European Design Automation Association (EDAA), the ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation (SIGDA), and the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA). The forum is an excellent opportunity for PhD students who have completed their PhD thesis within the last 12 months or who are close to completing their thesis to present their work to and discuss it with a broad audience in the system design and design automation community from both industry and academia. The forum may also help students to establish contacts for entering the job market. In addition, representatives from industry and academia get a glance of the state-of-the-art in system design and design automation.

Design Competitions & Technical Challenges

Design competitions emphasize hands-on system building, algorithmic thinking, and practical engineering skills. Participants work under realistic constraints to solve open-ended or challenge-driven problems, often bridging theory and practice. These activities foster creativity, teamwork, and technical depth, while offering students a venue to demonstrate capabilities beyond traditional publications.

System Design Competition at DAC (DACSDC)

Since 2017, the System Design Contest at DAC has served as a flagship, hands-on student competition that bridges design automation research and real-world system implementation. The contest challenges student teams to build end-to-end systems—often involving hardware–software co-design, accelerators, and emerging application domains—under realistic constraints on performance, efficiency, and correctness. Over the years, DAC SDC has continuously evolved to reflect shifts in the field, incorporating modern platforms, design methodologies, and application-driven problem statements. By emphasizing functional systems, quantitative evaluation, and live or interactive demonstrations, the contest has provided students with valuable experience in system integration, optimization, and technical communication, while offering the broader community early insight into emerging design techniques and workflows. Today, DAC SDC remains a highly visible venue for showcasing student innovation and practical engineering excellence within the design automation ecosystem.

CADathlon at ICCAD

The CADathlon is a challenging, all-day, programming competition focusing on practical problems at the forefront of Computer-Aided Design, and Electronic Design Automation in particular. The contest emphasizes the knowledge of algorithmic techniques for CADapplications, problem-solving and programming skills, as well as teamwork.

As the “Olympic games of EDA,” the contest brings together the best and the brightest of the next generation of CAD professionals. It gives academia and the industry a unique perspective on challenging problems and rising stars, and it also helps attract top graduate students to the EDA field.

Hardware Security Challenge Contest (HACK@DAC)

HACK@DAC is a hardware security challenge contest, co-located with DAC, for finding and exploiting security-critical vulnerabilities in hardware and firmware. In this competition, participants compete to identify the security vulnerabilities, implement the related exploits, propose mitigation techniques or patches, and report them. The participants are encouraged to use any tools and techniques with a focus on theory, tooling, and automation.

The contest mimics real-world scenarios where security engineers have to find vulnerabilities in the given design. The vulnerabilities are diverse and range from data corruption to leaking sensitive information leading to compromise of the entire computing platform. The open-source SoC riddled with security vulnerabilities has been co-developed by Intel, the Technical University of Darmstadt, and Texas A&M University. HACK@DAC has been successfully running since 2018 with several hundred contestants from academia and industry.

TinyML Design Challenge at ICCAD

ACM/IEEE TinyML Design Contest at ICCAD is a challenging, multi-month, research and development competition, focusing on real-world problems that requires the implementation of machine learning algorithms on low-end microprocessors/microcontrollers. It is open to multi-person teams world-wide.

Intelligent Systems Contest at ESWEEK

Fairness competition track in Tiny and Fair ML Design contest at ESWEEK is a challenging, multi-month, research and development competition, focusing on real-world problems that require the implementation of machine learning algorithms on low-end micro-processors/microcontrollers. It is open to multi-person teams worldwide. 

Demonstrations & Prototyping Showcases

These activities highlight working systems, tools, and prototypes, emphasizing implementation quality and real-world impact. By showcasing functional designs, students gain experience in system integration, live presentation, and engaging with diverse technical audiences, while attendees benefit from early exposure to emerging ideas and technologies.

University Demo at DAC

ACM SIGDA/IEEE CEDA University Demonstration (UD, previously University Booth) is an excellent opportunity for university researchers to showcase their results and to interact with participants at the Design Automation Conference (DAC). Presenters and attendees at DAC are especially encouraged to participate, but participation is open to all members of the university community. The demonstrations include new EDA tools, EDA tool applications, design projects, and instructional materials. The University Demonstration will be held together with the Ph.D. Forum at DAC.

Career Development & Professional Growth

Career-oriented programs support students and early-career researchers as they navigate academic, industrial, and entrepreneurial career paths. These activities provide access to mentors, hiring managers, and peers, helping participants better understand career trajectories and opportunities within and beyond EDA.

Early-Career Workshop at DAC

The DAC Early Career Workshop is a long-tradition forum for young and mid-career faculty and professionals in the fields related to electronic design automation (EDA) and any domain at its intersection. This workshop provides an opportunity for attendees to learn from successful people on diverse topics, such as getting research grants, establishing an impactful research group, building strong collaboration with industry and academic research, growing career both academically and professionally, and developing valuable soft skills towards a successful career.

This workshop will provide valuable suggestions for early-career faculty and professionals through short talks and panel discussions. During the session, the attendees can closely interact and network with some of the established academicians, professionals, and program officers of funding agencies in EDA-related fields and beyond.

Job Fair at ICCAD

The EDA job fair at ICCAD is a place for students and professionals looking for internships or full-time jobs to meet with representatives from companies and academia. At the beginning of the event, one representative from each organization has the opportunity to introduce the organization and its job opening(s). Afterward, all attendees have a chance to mingle.

Community Building & Outreach

Community-focused activities aim to strengthen connections across institutions, regions, and career stages. They foster an inclusive environment, encourage participation by first-time attendees, and help build long-term engagement within the EDA ecosystem. These efforts also support outreach to broader systems and embedded-systems communities.

SIGDA LIVE

SIGDA Live is a series of webinars, launched monthly or bi-monthly, on topics (either technical or non-technical) of general interest to the SIGDA community. The talks in general fall on the last Wednesday of a month, and last about 45 minutes plus 15 minutes Q&A. All past talks are archived through our Youtube channel. Each year we recognize one speaker with the “Most Influential Speaker of the Year” award.

Looking Ahead

SIGDA welcomes new ideas, volunteers, and organizers interested in launching student activities under the SIGDA umbrella. For inquiries about existing activities or proposals for new student programs, please contact SIGDA leadership or the appropriate conference committees.