Travel: NSF Student Travel Grant for The 2024 IEEE International Workshop on LLM-Aided Design (LAD'24)

Recent strides in artificial intelligence (AI) have demonstrated impressive capabilities in assisting with a wide range of text-generation tasks. One promising use-case is the use generative AI methods to assist in developing software and hardware. Large Language Models (LLMs) are already in use to assist in software code generation, and recent research has demonstrated promise of LLMs in assisting in various stages of computer chip design.

To further explore and encourage research in this rapidly advancing field, the inaugural International Symposium on LLM-Aided Design (LAD’24) seeks to bring together leading researchers from academia, industry and government and create a research community around this field. Graduate and undergraduate student researchers will be a critical part of this community, and this award will support travel for students with limited or no financial support to travel to LAD’24 in Almaden California.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are making significant strides in text and content generation for a wide range of tasks, and are proving to be helpful in developing software/hardware computing stacks. These advancements are poised to transform software and hardware code generation, system-level architecture design, electronic design automation flow, and test and verification processes.

LAD’24 will capitalize on recent generative AI and LLM technology innovations, introducing new methods and solutions for design automation across various applications. It aims to establish itself as a leading forum for discussing how LLMs can enhance quality, productivity, robustness, and cost-efficiency in circuit, software, and computing systems design.

This award will support up to ten graduate student researchers to attend LAD’24, allowing them to share their research and findings with academic and industry leaders in this nascent field.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.