Andy Yan's Home Page

I am a graduate student at the University of British Columbia. I am a member of the System-on-a-Chip Research group under the supervision of Dr. Steve Wilton. My undergraduate degree was also completed at the University of British Columbia with a major in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a minor in Commerce. My research interests include software and hardware design, programmable logic, and CAD algorithms.

As of January 2005, I have completed my M.A.Sc degree and am currently working as a software engineer at Altera Corp, San Jose.

Research Project: Product Term Embedded Synthesizable Logic Cores

As integrated circuits become increasingly complex, the ability to make post-fabrication changes will become more important and attractive. This ability can be realized using programmable logic cores. Currently, such cores are available from vendors in the form of a "hard" layout. Previous work has suggested an alternative approach: vendors supply a synthesizable version of their programmable logic core and the integrated circuit designer synthesizes the programmable logic fabric using standard cells. This research presents a new family of architectures for these synthesizable cores; unlike previous architectures which were based on lookup-tables, the new family of architectures is based on a collection of product-term arrays. Compared to lookup-table based architectures, the new architectures result in density improvements of 35% and speed improvements of 72% on standard benchmark circuits.

Publications

  • Master Thesis: A. Yan, "Product-Term Based Synthesizable Embedded Programmable Logic Cores", M.A.Sc. thesis, January 2005. [abstract] [pdf] [slides]
  • A. Yan, S.J.E. Wilton, "Product-Term Based Synthesizable Embedded Programmable Logic Cores", IEEE Transactions on VLSI, Vol. 14, No. 5, May 2006, pp. 474-488. [abstract] [pdf]
  • A. Yan, S.J.E. Wilton, ''Sequential Synthesizable Embedded Programmable Logic Cores for System-on-Chip'', in the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference , Orlando, FL, October 2004. [abstract] [pdf]
  • A. Yan, S.J.E. Wilton, ``Product Term Embedded Synthesizable Logic Cores'', in the IEEE International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology, Tokyo, Japan, Dec. 2003, pp. 162-169. Best Paper Award [abstract] [pdf] [slides]
  • A. Yan, R. Cheng, S.J.E. Wilton, ``On the Sensitivity of FPGA Architectural Conclusions to the Experimental Assumptions, Tools, and Techniques'', in the ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, Monterey, CA, Feb. 2002, pp. 147-156. [abstract] [pdf]
  • K.K.W. Poon, S.J.E. Wilton, A. Yan, "A Detailed Power Model for Field-Programmable Gate Arrays", in ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems (TODAES), Vol. 10, Issue 2, April 2005, pp. 279-302. [abstract] [pdf] [code].
  • K. Poon, A. Yan, S.J.E. Wilton, ``A Flexible Power Model for FPGAs'', in the 12th International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications, Sept 2002. Included in Lecture Notes in Computer Science 2438, Springer-Verlag, pp. 48-58. [abstract] [pdf] [code].

Interests

I enjoy listening to classical music and playing the piano. I have recently completed both the ARCT piano performer’s and piano teacher's diploma. I also enjoy working with computers, and in my spare time I enjoy swimming, jogging, and playing and basketball.

Contact

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
c/o Dr. Steve Wilton
University of British Columbia
2356 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC, Canada. V6T 1Z4
Tel: (408) 544-6682

My Resume [pdf]