ISPD26 Contest: Post-Placement Buffering and Sizing

Organizing Team: UCSD, Fudan University, POSTECH

Co-Chairs
Dr. Yiting Liu, UCSD ABKGroup [yil375@ucsd.edu]
Prof. Zhiang Wang, Fudan University [zhiangwang@fudan.edu.cn]

Table of Contents

• Contest description: ISPD26_contest_description.pdf
• Benchmarks: Public benchmarks.
• Platform/ASAP7: Technology platform files and libraries for the ASAP7 PDK.
• Evaluation scripts: Evaluation scripts for aes_cipher_top, jpeg_encoder, ariane and bsg_chip.
• Docker containers and submission formatting: Dockerfile and commands required to maintain a consistent evaluation and submission environment can be found at the README.

Timeline

• Registration Open: Oct 1, 2025
• Release the first set of benchmarks, evaluation scripts and Docker image: Oct. 1, 2025
• Release the second set of benchmarks (with placement blockages): Nov. 9, 2025
• Registration Close: Nov 30, 2025
• Release one large-scale testcase: Dec. 1, 2025
• Release one large-scale testcase with placement blockages; all public benchmarks are available: Dec. 3, 2025
• Alpha Submission Deadline: Jan 12, 2026
• Beta Submission Deadline: Feb, 2, 2026
• Final Submission Deadline: Mar, 7, 2026 (Anywhere on earth, and it is a hard deadline)
• Results Announcement: March 18, 2026

Contact

Email: ispd26contest@gmail.com

Registration

• Registration has closed.
• Registration window: Oct.1, 2025 - Nov 30, 2025
• We confirm that we’ve received the registration forms from the following teams. If we overlooked your registration or any related information, please feel free to email us.

ID	Team Name	Affiliation
1	Horiguchi Takahiro	Unknown
2	XidianU	Xidian University
3	Marvin	Indian Institute of Technology Madras
4	IITM Placement Cell	Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
5	GT	georgia tech
6	PKU	Peking University
7	m0654	Yuan Ze University
8	nvBuffplace	NVIDIA
9	HKUST-GZ	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)
10	arg_duck	Independent
11	Placed and Confused	Chair of Design Automation, Technical University of Munich (TUM)
12	ChipFat	Vellore Institute of Technology
13	UCLA_Placer	UCLA
14	IRISLab	Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering, National Taiwan University
15	timing-booster	Texas A&M University
16	lololol	Department of Electrical Engineering,National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
17	ECOS-OPT	Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
18	have a try	Sun Yat-Sen University
19	poSTer	southeast university
20	Anti_Chaos	Southeast University
21	Wild at heart	National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
22	BFS	Yuan Ze University
23	Encoding	National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
24	ECOS-OPT	Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
25	NYCUVDALAB	Institute of Electronics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung Unniversity
26	The Phoenix Gate Guardians	The Chinese University of Hong Kong
27	(^(oo)^)/	National Tsing Hua University
28	Masters of Chatgpt	Yuan Ze University
29	HLFC	National Tsing Hua University
30	ECO	Independent
31	PTSD	National Tsing Hua University
32	TCLAB	National Tsing Hua University
33	IRISLab	Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering National Taiwan University
34	warp_speed	Indian Institute of Technology Madras
35	XORcists	Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya
36	EDAnh	National Taiwan University of Science and Technology

Contest Prizes

• First, second and third place winning teams will receive prizes consisting of cash and/or NVIDIA GPUs, with a total value of prizes at least USD $5000. Thanks to NVIDIA for their sponsorship of the ISPD26 contest prizes!

Organizers

• Andrew B. Kahng, Sayak Kundu, Yiting Liu, and Davit Markarian from UCSD
• Zhiang Wang from Fudan University
• Seokhyeong Kang and Seonghyeon Park from POSTECH

Sponsors

• Purdue University and the NSF Chipshub: compute resources for teams and submission evaluation
• NVIDIA: prizes for winning teams

Support

Feel free to open a GitHub issue if you have any questions.