Biography – David Kung

David Kung received a BA from U.C. Berkeley, an M.A. from Harvard, and a PhD from Stanford University. He joined the Advanced Simulation group in IBM Research (Yorktown Heights) in 1986 and his first project was to work on a massively parallel hardware simulation engine. He found his second assignment in the Logic Synthesis group and was one of the major contributors to IBM's BooleDozer logic synthesis system. He became the manager of the Logic Synthesis group in 1999 and led the project management and technical development of IBM's physical synthesis tool, Placement Driven Synthesis (PDS). He was promoted to Senior Manager of the Design Automation Department in 2004 and is responsible for managing a department of world class researchers in design automation, charting the future direction of design tools research for IBM, securing funding for the department, and interacting with academia.

David has published over 30 papers and presentations and holds more than 10 patents. He is on the editorial board of Design and Test magazine and the VLSI Journal, and is the guest editor for a special issue on 3D IC for the Design and Test magazine. He served on the Executive Committee of the ICCAD from 2006 to 2008 and is on the Technical Program Committee of the DAC. He is on the Technical Advisory Board of SRC and is a senior member of the IEEE. IBM recognized David’s technical achievements with numerous awards, including three Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards and a Corporate Award presented by the IBM CEO for his work in Physical Synthesis. He is active in promoting science and technology education and is an avid participant in the National Engineers Week and the First Lego League. He is passionate about community building and served as the site representative of an Asian diversity group within IBM. In his spare time, he plays tennis, skis and learns ballroom dancing.