X. Sharon Hu: Those of you are joining us. We'll give a couple more minutes for people to join in in case there's any technical difficulties. Then we'll get started.
X. Sharon Hu: Ah, great um! Good morning! Good afternoon or good evening, depending on your time zone. Welcome to the chip design, hub, solicitation, Webinar, all ah posted by Andsf. My name is Sharon, who I'm. A program director in the Ccf Division of the Size Director and I'm. One of the cognition program directors for this and shift design, hub, solicitation.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, before we jump into the discussions of the details of the solicitation, i'd like to introduce Dr. Dilma Dieselva, acting Director of Science Directorate to give us to get us started. Gilman.
Dilma Da Silva: Hi, Cheryl! Thank you very much. Hi, everyone. We're so pleased to have this opportunity to talk about this program with you.
Dilma Da Silva: This program is a special ah to us, to Nsf. Because it aligns with many of them as I've top priorities. So This is a program that we strength our research infrastructure, which is, you know, an important priority and a staff.
Dilma Da Silva: It also does it in a way that people will be able to leverage this infrastructure from many different places. So it aligns well with this opportunities everywhere that we pursue here. And finally,
this is about semiconductors. So it is about enabling research and education that will further an important segment of emerging industry. So it is a pleasure for us to to be able to.
Dilma Da Silva: Ah have a programming size that will cross. Ah, just check so many of our priorities. Another thing that I really like about this program. It really came in response from what we heard from the community. So many of the program directors who developed this program had been talking to the community for years. There was a request for information. A couple of years ago there were a
at least a couple of workshops that were led by size Ccf Cns,
Dilma Da Silva: the Computer Network Systems Division or the Computer Communication Foundation Division, and in November we could be a convening here in in Washington, Dc. With one hundred and fifty people. From a very broad spectrum of stakeholders. We had people from community colleges, from R. One universes our two universities industry,
Dilma Da Silva: the startups and nonprofits and other governmental agencies, and it was great to see that they amplified they need for the design part of the infrastructure. Many of us have been talking about fab access, giving access to fabrication and
Dilma Da Silva: and an Asf has, you know, programs. Ah supplements to help the Pis with that, And we all know that in the context of Chips Department of Commerce. Ah, Darpa, many other agencies are setting up ah infrastructure for fab access here. This program addresses the need to have the design done before the fabrication, and providing this design is one
Dilma Da Silva: more than in this program is more than give
Dilma Da Silva: access to the tools. The, for example, Eva tools. It is also about enabling sharing of best practices know how training material it's to really get the part of entry to using those tools much lower for all the institutions. So we are very excited to see how this program will play out,
Dilma Da Silva: and yes, we'll continue to support fab access. I would also remind people that there is a D shel from size with the Mathematics and Physical Science Directory and Engineering directors that we issued in August twenty two that is still going. But we we are hoping to see now the design space really fly.
Dilma Da Silva: Uh, finally.
Dilma Da Silva: Ah! Our work in the semiconductor space in the infrastructure for semiconductor research and application is based is really ah aligned with what is going on in other agencies. So I do participate in a monthly meetings with people from all the other agencies we we exchange ah, information about our programs and um your ways of going from one program to the other. So I know many of you are watching out what is happening in the
chips in space, and I want to to say that we do understand that getting our Nsfpi community.
Dilma Da Silva: Ah! Feeding into those other programs is also a priority for us and for the program directors that you are going to meet here.
Dilma Da Silva: So, Sharon, this is Ah, this is it. I try to be very brief, so we can go get to hear the details about the program, because that's what people are here for. Thank you, Cheryl:
X. Sharon Hu: Thank you so much, Dilma. And that's really set a tone for the next part of my presentation. So yeah, It is my great pleasure to start today's seminar with the presentation. First,
X. Sharon Hu: I will specifically discuss the objectives and the key requirements of the chip design of the chip design hub, solicitation, and what it covers, and what it does not cover as well as the specific evaluation. Criteria for this self-serviceitation.
X. Sharon Hu: Now my screen folk. God freeze a little bit.
X. Sharon Hu: Let me make sure.
X. Sharon Hu: Okay. So um. Now you're here. Please use the question and answer panel in the zoom to submit your question hearing, and after the presentation I am, together with several of my colleagues here, and and the staff will answer them at the end. The recording of the at Webinar will be posted. Um after the seminar. Probably take a a few days for us to get it posted. If again due to time limit. We can now answer all the questions, or if you still have questions after
X. Sharon Hu: the Webinar, so feel free to send questions to chip underscore Hub at an Asf. Gov. And we'll answer them.
X. Sharon Hu: Ah, and please note that this seminar or this Webinar is not a substitute for the solicitation. So we're just to want to highlight some of the key points in this cell. Hesitation and and clarify some questions you may have for details. Please refer to the solicitation.
X. Sharon Hu: So now. Ah, come to this! Ah! Why, where does this Ah, whole soliditation come from? As we're all well aware that the chip, design and fabrication have to a lot of attention recently, and it's rightly so. And when we think about Ic. Chip design, fabrication infrastructures like Elma, also measured, we can typically think of the in two big components on the design side. Of course, electronic design tools or Ada tools at all levels.
X. Sharon Hu: I Ip. Licensing distribution support as well as like Ipga prototyping. They are some of the key components
X. Sharon Hu: now on the ah fabrication side. Then the infrastructure should cover all sorts of technologies, die testing packaging as well as post silicon validation.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, in order to understand the means Ah! From the community related to these two types of infrastructure again, like Thelma said, Anesf has organized a number of workshops covering research, education, workforce development as well as comprehensive service. I list them there here. So if you're interested to find out more about what has been said, what has been voiced in those in these documents
to check them out.
X. Sharon Hu: Now some of the key takeaways from these community Voices include the need for design infrastructure that covers open access to the Ic. Design ecosystem, and also the design enablement for emerging technologies.
X. Sharon Hu: And another recommendation is establishing partnership with Eda software vendors to fund licenses, especially for fourteen institutions and making Ic design as easy as software programming.
X. Sharon Hu: And now, of course, what we are trying to address. Here is the chip design hub. It's trying to mainly focus on this part of the infrastructure.
X. Sharon Hu: I'm not going into the details of these. Ah, the voices, I think again, and a lot of you are already very familiar with us. Now I also want to make it clear that, besides the design infrastructure, there's of course there's a critical need for fabrication infrastructure, and this would again aim to include Ah, access to leading edge and legacy Cmos technologies, as well as establishment of a national facility for prototyping, emerging technology at scale.
X. Sharon Hu: And of course, another goal is offering low to no cost. Chip came out to students now due to the limited funding this chip design. Hubs solicitation does not address this need.
X. Sharon Hu: Now another takeaway is a need for packaging and testing infrastructure, for example, establishing regional or national facilities to for remote chip testing and maybe multi-projite packaging services. This particular solicitation covers this infrastructure needs on a very limited extent, which I will discuss later.
X. Sharon Hu: So again, in response to this strong community voice, and as I've has recently announced this brand new chip design. Hubs, solicitation, and i'll go into details
X. Sharon Hu: here.
X. Sharon Hu: Now. The chip design hub over all solicitations. Aim is to drastically lower the barriers for students at all levels and academic researchers as well, in order for them to access. State of the art Eda tools, Pdks and Ip cores.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, a successful chip design Hub project will pave the way towards broadening participation in chip design, and beyond the limited number of institutions currently engaged in these activities.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, specifically, the chip design hubs. Solicitation covers all the key components in the design side, which I have circled with red circle.
X. Sharon Hu: That um, except, I should say, accept the Fpga prototyping part it also covers. You can see the post-fabrication functional testing.
X. Sharon Hu: Now,
X. Sharon Hu: furthermore,
X. Sharon Hu: another very important component should be the education and training support, and this is another key component in the solidization. Now I will let me go into some more details about the various components.
X. Sharon Hu: Now again over all this chip design hub program focus on providing cloud-based design, infrastructure to universities, community colleges, etc.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, on the Eda tool side access a successful project should provide access to end-to-end tool flow
X. Sharon Hu: complete with licensing and version requirements, as well as support to minimize the Eda toolbox and errors, et cetera. Now inclusion of eda tools from both the multiple vendors and also open source tools, is highly desirable.
X. Sharon Hu: The two suite should also include both front-end and back-end design and verification tool,
X. Sharon Hu: now on the pdk and Ip. Side a successful project should provide again access to a variety of Pdk and Ip resources, and Ip corps should be to be accessible both the hard course or self-course, depending on the of course, particular design requirements.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, regarding the education and training side, a successful project should provide comprehensive training, materials, and design verification and test towards a successful paypal. Arguing at different foundry processes. For example, the training modules may include the use of eda tools, pdks and ips and chip, integration, packaging bunk designs, foundry, cell integration.
X. Sharon Hu: Ah, you name it like fabrication schedules, etc. It should also include ah other design issues, you know, training, for example, reliability, considerations, electro, static, discharge, protection, yield optimization. Ah, you know other set of nanometer design issues that are important to have a successful chip paper.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, the I see design resulting from this is the whole design flow that's offered less it by a chip design hub. They should be in the form of mask layout tools, for example, Cds too, and suitable for fabricating, but suitable, as you say, for fabrication, using various fabrication aggregation services.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, while emerging technologies and the predictive pdks and design kids are welcome. I should say the main focus should be on supporting access to tools to flows and ips and pdks for fabrication on standard Cmos processes.
X. Sharon Hu: Now for post-fabrication support, such as the packaging road for design testing they're welcome, and, for example, maybe in the form of tools, design, guidelines, training materials, etc. Now providing remote access to reduce the overall cost formed by students and researchers for testing is really a highly desirable
X. Sharon Hu: now due to the funding level. The Chip design Hub program will not support projects that include science and scientific and engineering research. Now, except the purpose of these research is for validation of the readiness of the proposed infrastructure.
X. Sharon Hu: Now let's look at some of the solicitation, mechanics, and detail the requirements.
X. Sharon Hu: Ah! For this solicitation no letter of intent is required, and no preliminary proposal, Submission is required. That line, of course, is April fourth, two thousand and twenty four, and the proposal should be submitted, submitted via research, al gob, or Grants dot com.
X. Sharon Hu: The anticipated award will be the participant type of award. It will be incorporated agreement which is different from the standard or continuing grants with lots of us familiar with.
X. Sharon Hu: Now the the the details are cooperative agreement. It's beyond the the the scope of this particular webinar. But the the The high-level idea is that this type of agreement will will ah will require more oversight from, and and once the award is given, then the agreement will work out between the University of the field and institutions, and and and Andsf.
X. Sharon Hu: Now the estimated number of awards will be two, and the total and anticipate funding is ten million and maximum size and duration of what our and the world will be up to one point six million for five years.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, please note that the estimated program budget, the number of awards and awards, size and duration are all subject to availability of funds.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, speaking of Elizabeth at eligibility. The pis and copies of a proposal must be either a tenured or ten-year track position, or a primary full-time paid appointment in a research and teaching position.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, individuals at overseas branch campuses of us, institutional, higher education are not eligible
X. Sharon Hu: now individually primary appointments As for-profit non-academic ah organizations can serve as paid or unpaid senior personnel, but cannot be as pis or copies.
X. Sharon Hu: Ah! An individual ah may appear aspi copi or senior personnel only on one proposal, but there is no limit on the number of proposals an organization can participate.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, a single proposal should be submitted
X. Sharon Hu: by the lead organization, so there's no cooperative, no collaborative proposals and support should be provided to collaborating organizations via several wars managed again by the lead organization. Now, some of you may ask, Why is this requirement, this requirement really to help you? Sure, the end infrastructure is well integrated.
X. Sharon Hu: So ah! Make sure to read the facilitation for more details about all these eligibility information, and you know, as always, non-compliant proposal will be returned without review
X. Sharon Hu: as always refer to Pa. Vpg. Chapter two d dot two for guidelines on the requirement of a full research proposal.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, I would like to specifically point out that it's important to pay attention to the proposal. Preparation instructions provided in the program. Solicitation that deviates from the Pppg instructions I'd. Like to highlight a few of them here especially related to the supplementary of the documents.
X. Sharon Hu: This solicitation requires a collaboration plan. Up to two pages the
X. Sharon Hu: the plan should include the specific roles of each and every participant across all organizations involved, and they should also include information on how the project will be managed across all the personnel on the project, and as well as the institutions involved,
X. Sharon Hu: and the plan should also include a specific coordination mechanism that enabled across the investigator crossing across the institution and cross-disciplinary type of scientific integration.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, if a proposal involves an industry, partners especially unpaid, a larger collaboration is required.
X. Sharon Hu: The letter should describe the plan for interactions, the time commitment of the industrial partners and the nature of the work. The total number of identified
X. Sharon Hu: an unfunded collaborator should not exceed ten, and this again, to ensure that the team is at a reasonable size, and can be well managed.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, given this, the nature of the solicitation is to build infrastructure, and as have recognizes that collaboration is really critical, so we strongly encourage collaboration among multiple universities and industry.
X. Sharon Hu: Now for industry partners, we can see that they can be. They can contribute in a number of ways. I listed a few here, but of course they are not limited to the following. For example: Ah! Some of them could be mediated to the Eva companies, and the foundry brokers and boundaries themselves. And again, personnel from other type of nonprofit and for-profit organization can also be collaborators.
X. Sharon Hu: Now please note that the rows again. The rows and the activities of every collaborator should be clearly described as I discussed in the previous slide.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, besides the euro intellectual merit and broader impact review criteria like a typical proposal. This proposal review of this, not the solicitation will also apply a set of solicitation-specific criteria. So they are they are included here below here. And first,
X. Sharon Hu: a proposal should address. How well does the proposed project will enable new research directions that were previously intractable, maybe infeasible or impractical. Prior to this project.
X. Sharon Hu: It also will also evaluate the proposals to see to what degree our education and the workforce development addressed in the project. And how will these activities strengthen the post-secondary education and lead towards a measurable positive impact on the semiconductor workforce?
X. Sharon Hu: Other criteria include how broad the range of semiconductor-based systems are enabled, and particularly considering Cmos fabrication at different feature sizes.
X. Sharon Hu: We'll also look at how robust are the plans for engaging the user community the infrastructures for the community. Right? How well are you going to engage the user? Community, especially to validate the impact of the project and also for sustainability beyond the initial Nsf. Investment. This will be again to how to support the chip design hub beyond the five years.
X. Sharon Hu: The project will also be looked at. See how well or how robust are the plans for engaging with open-source, academic and not academic entities, including the tool vendors, fabrication facilities. Pdk ip providers, and vendors that support end-to-end design flow. So these are the criteria specifically for disabilities that we will instruct the reviewers to use to access each of submitted
X. Sharon Hu: ourselves
X. Sharon Hu: Now again, there's more details on the solicitation. So please read the solicitation on this
X. Sharon Hu: now
X. Sharon Hu: given that this infrastructure meant to be broadly ah assessed and used type, a cybersecurity plan is also required. This is not a specific. Ah, this is not being treated as a supplementary material. This will be partially integrated into the overall proposal.
X. Sharon Hu: So so a successful ah proposal should really clearly describe the roles and responsibilities with respect to cybersecurity for the infrastructure, as well as how the security vulnerabilities will be assessed and addressed. At least the number of these factors here that should be considered, and should be included in your discussion of the cybersecurity plan, but due to the time limit. I think I will not go over that in a greater detail.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, in addition, proposals are as to describe how the effectiveness of your proposed cybersecurity plan will be evaluated and assessed, and what approach will be taken to implement
X. Sharon Hu: the proposed cybersecurity plan?
X. Sharon Hu: Now, Ah, The proposal submitted in response to this solicitation will be revealed by ad hoc reviews and the panel and or panel reviews. It could be combined both ad hoc and panel Review.
X. Sharon Hu: Now the review process will also include Ah, either site, visit, review, or reverse site, visit review. If you don't know what the reverse side Review. That means we're inviting the So the the P. I so come to and Andsf to present more details and to answer questions from the program directors.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, as I mentioned earlier awards, will be made in the form of a cooperative agreement, and that this ands will have more oversight in terms of the post award management.
X. Sharon Hu: Ah will also require that within the first ninety days of the award, a retreat of the awarded Project key personnel, organized by the award recipients to address the strategic planning of the Chip Design Fund. And this is recorded, like I said, This is a required retreat as to be organized by the awardees, and so your budget should include the expenses for this specific retreat
X. Sharon Hu: now. Ah, beyond that, and as I will also conduct site, visit, and our reverse side visit. Ah! As part of the proposal evaluation process this is of Ah! When we consider subsequent reviews for the project performance in the subsequent years
X. Sharon Hu: now, because again support for each year of the cooperative agreement of a funded project will be contingent about again satisfactory. A new review, maybe, including these site reviews I mentioned about. So, of course, all funding is subject to availability.
X. Sharon Hu: Now this solicitation will be managed by a team of us, and this, including Dr. San Kabasu, Dr. Danella, Zhao, and myself, from Ccf,
X. Sharon Hu: Dr. Eric Brahmont, Daniel, and Dr. Jason and Dr. Jason Halstrom, from Cns, and also Dr. Raj Acheria, from I. S. And Dr. Andrea. Ah, Kaney from the Oac. Some of us are presented at today's seminar. I also will join the question and answer session. And later.
X. Sharon Hu: Now, if you have general or specific questions not answered in today's seminar, the best way is to email the chip underscore hub at an
X. Sharon Hu: so as always, would you prepare a proposal?
X. Sharon Hu: Be sure to fully read the solicitation, and be sure to read the Pa. Pvgs, especially the relevant chapters I listed here.
X. Sharon Hu: So with that I kind of quickly. Ah, Zip! Through the highlights of this solicitation, because we want to give more time for the for you guys to ask questions. So again thank you for your attention, and we'll stop here, and then I will. Ah start the the question. Let the question answer her
X. Sharon Hu: of the that Webinar. Now for this, my my colleague and Jason Holstrong, who lead a will lead a Qa session, and my other colleagues, including Sankar Basou Raj, Algeria and Dennetration, they will all collectively help to answer any specific questions you may have. Again,
X. Sharon Hu: like I said, we. We already received some questions before the start of the Webinar, and we'll try to answer some of that, and also start to answer some of your questions. With that I will turn this over to Jason.
Jason Hallstrom: Thank you, Sharon. So I'm going to go ahead and share some questions and answers that we put together in advance of the Webinar today, and Shankar is going to walk up through those while we take a look at the questions that have been submitted during the Webinar. And so Chunk or I'm. Going to share my screen
and the summary of questions and answers that we received hopefully. Everyone can see that. Okay,
Jason Hallstrom: and i'll turn it to you, Chunker.
X. Sharon Hu: Sometimes you are muted.
Sankar Basu: Can you hear me now?
Sankar Basu: Yes, okay, I thought, Jason, you are going to answer the questions, too,
Jason Hallstrom: so i'm more than happy to do that. I was going to review the questions that were submitted during the Webinar while you were walking through these.
Sankar Basu: Okay,
Jason Hallstrom: all right. Very good.
Sankar Basu: So Um, um,
Sankar Basu: i'm going to go through the list of questions here that we have received already in the zip. Hub uh mailbox. Um! There are sort of like eight questions that we have. So far the question number one is: some of these questions actually came from multiple individuals, and it's kind of a summarized version of uh, several questions. So the first question is,
Sankar Basu: Can an industry person serve as the senior personnel or multiple proposals? The answer is, No Uh. Individuals with primary appointments at for profit or non academic organizations, can serve as paid or unpaid senior personnel. But, uh, that is not as the as a gopi but can only uh be on one proposal. Um, for a prop for profit. Non academic organization can participate in one month.
Sankar Basu: Proposals. We hope that's clear. A question number two is the
Sankar Basu: as follows: it says, are developing new or renovating and renovating existing design courses required educational components. So we take it that the intent behind this question is the renovating existing design courses? That's the question. That is what the question is about. The answer is largely yes and no.
Sankar Basu: So a course, development activities, if included, should be closely related to the infrastructure establishment effort. So the the goal of this solicitation is uh the infrastructure um designing um regular courses, as is often done in a broader impact. Parts of proposals is not what we are looking forward to, unless it is uh
Sankar Basu: closely intertwined with the infrastructure establishment, activity itself. All right Question three that has to do with startups question is, Can startups use or benefit from the hub?
Sankar Basu: The answer is in the current solicitation target. Users are students at various level levels, and for academic researchers as well. Um startups are not really targeted by these solicitations. For startups, a different licensing may be required, or maybe involved. And that's a That's a question further down the road. So the answer is
Sankar Basu: immediately. But in the future, maybe Question four.
Sankar Basu: Ah question says, are the rod universities required to provide Ip and Pdk licenses? The answer is, No, the universities are not required to provide licenses directly, but must provide infrastructure
Sankar Basu: for, or somehow facilitate, securing such licenses so they can serve as a middleman or something like that. Jason next slide.
Sankar Basu: Okay, Question five. What is the ideal way for industry to be engaged? Now, this is a question that's been asked to us. But I think um. The onus is on the proposals to find um the best way possible. Um, Let me also say that we are also learning by interacting through that academic with the academic community, so we can give you some examples like Ah, industry can be engaged in many different ways.
Sankar Basu: One of them could be licensing, streamlining the process free for academics would be nice. Design flows, consulting technical guidance
Sankar Basu: training um playing the trainers. So. Ah, teacher, education, if the industry folks or the people from Fab can provide that sort of planning to teachers, or whoever in community colleges That would be nice. Ah, there may be others. Ah! So it's up to the proposals to think creatively how they can get engaged with industry. Ah, question six. Ah! Do you see this project better led by the research
Sankar Basu: faculty, Pi, or some organizations like Loop Moses.
Sankar Basu: Ah, as you know, Moses is ah not Ah has not been very useful for the academic community in recent years, although we did do a fantastic job. Oops.
Yeah,
Sankar Basu: something happened in the slides. It did a fantastic job in the early years of really the size of twenty thirty years ago. But the answer is, The project has to be led by A. P. I. From an institution of higher education. Now some universities have entities which are not the
Sankar Basu: and then two
Sankar Basu: of electrical engineering and computer science, but but they they for proposal submission purposes. They operate in the same way as an academic department, they are qualified. So the the University entity has to be someone that that are eligible to submit proposals to Nsf. Question seven
Sankar Basu: this hub solicitation will not directly support research. Right? That was a question. The answer is very simple.
Sankar Basu: Correct. This solicitation is not meant to promote research, but somehow edible research for the future brought in participation among the research community to take advantage of the infrastructure facilities.
Sankar Basu: Question Eight What happens after the five-year program?
Sankar Basu: So this was one of this question was actually answered by Sharon, whose slides But, i'll repeat, the answer is indeed a sustainability is an important consideration in proposal evaluation, although at the current time Nsf. Has no specific
Sankar Basu: plan or program targeting support of the research design. The the Chip design have after five years. But this is not to say that after five years we are going to shut down all of this activity and will not do anything anymore. It depends on how successful the program is, and that much of that depends on the community. The proposals we receive, the Grant we fund, and all of that. If it's all successful. Maybe Nsf. Will
Sankar Basu: think forward. But at this point of time this particular solicitation is only for five years going forward, So Pis are encouraged to device creative plans to sustain that you design our effort in collaboration with Nsf. So that we can support this beyond the five five year period. But the current plan is
Sankar Basu: for five years old.
Jason Hallstrom: Okay. So those are the questions that we had in advance. Jason, you have now live questions. Perhaps we do. I have some life
Jason Hallstrom: we'll start working our way through the questions that have been submitted during the Webinar. I will offer an initial cut and a first response, and of course invite my colleagues to jump in at any time to add detail or make any.
Jason Hallstrom: So in no particular order.
Jason Hallstrom: First question
Jason Hallstrom: will the proposal need to explain how to set up a three-way license with eda vendors and users.
Jason Hallstrom: The expectation is That successful proposals will indeed describe how licensing will be managed to streamline licensing between vendors,
Jason Hallstrom: he said,
Jason Hallstrom: Going to cross these off as we go through them, is the intent to put a solicitation to broaden participation
with new institutions
Jason Hallstrom: are enhanced existing locations.
Jason Hallstrom: So the short answer is that we are hoping that the solicitation will achieve both of those goals. But the primary emphasis is on broadening participants
Jason Hallstrom: across the enterprise. So the idea is that when we look nationally at the number of institutions that are involved in ship design. It's a relatively small number, and we would like to see that expanded across the country
Jason Hallstrom: and the use of Ella Can we use Llm for chip design. And can this be part of the initiative? There is certainly nothing in the solicitation that prohibits the use of Llm. But I believe that this question is more of a a research question into Shanford's earlier point,
not designed to support new Directly fund new research activities. It is all about the construction, the
for downstream research,
Jason Hallstrom: since there isn't really any high school curriculum on semiconductor theory, Is there any room for that curriculum, or is the focus
only focus on the toolflows and post fabrication.
Solicitation welcomed high school
Jason Hallstrom: curriculum. It welcomed chip design, curriculum, high school undergraduate and graduates, so that's certainly within the
Jason Hallstrom: we do not take a hard position on which of those we prefer so
Jason Hallstrom: high school undergrad or graduate.
Jason Hallstrom: There is a conflict between the number of awards two and the ceiling amount of eight, and the total available budget of ten, which is only five million per award. How is an S and A. That's going to resolve this conflict
Jason Hallstrom: so absolutely. That is correct. It is not going to be possible for us to fund two at the highest ceiling amount, and so the awards will ultimately be based on the
Jason Hallstrom: and the availability of funds, and it is certainly possible that we fund one at the full amount, and that there is a complementary chip hub
funded that they reduced to amount the
Jason Hallstrom: priority for course development in terms of education level, i. E. Higher undergraduate in high school there Isn't a hard priority that is established within the
Jason Hallstrom: can. A nonprofit representative of the
Jason Hallstrom: served on multiple people?
Jason Hallstrom: The short answer is, is, Yes, if they are an unfunded collaborator, not Api, not a co-pi, not senior personnel. So a collaborating industry partner who is not named on the proposal that is not named as ci coke, or senior personnel may participate
Jason Hallstrom: in multiple proposals. However, if an industry representative is named the Fi Kopii, or senior personnel, they can only be named on one such submission
Jason Hallstrom: can you share plans, and how to ensure sustainability after five years the
Jason Hallstrom: so the Shankar has touched upon this already. And so i'm going to dismiss this. We're looking for applicants to devise a creative, to to devise creative ways, to
Jason Hallstrom: sustainability, with the understanding that there are certainly unknowns in terms of what Nsf. Support might look like five years for. Now,
Jason Hallstrom: do you view?
Jason Hallstrom: I'm just working my way through some of the others.
Jason Hallstrom: Does the prohibition on research mean that essentially
Jason Hallstrom: No, it does not mean that. So we would not fund graduate student researchers to be focused exclusively, for example, on new methods of chip design. That would be a research problem that would not be fundable through the solicitation.
Jason Hallstrom: But we would certainly be happy to support graduate student
Jason Hallstrom: who were involved in the construction of the chip of itself, or in the operation of the chipmunk, or the development of associated curriculum and support.
Jason Hallstrom: How is industry participation. Seen under this solicitation.
Jason Hallstrom: If it is not funded, it's literally cost-share by industry it's not allowed so This would be fundamentally the same as any other industry, collaboration on any other solicitation with an unfunded collaborator. So there is not a requirement within the solicitation that the industry partners
Jason Hallstrom: provide, for example, to provide infrastructure support.
Jason Hallstrom: So we we leave that to the applicant.
Jason Hallstrom: I may need help from my colleagues. I don't understand this question Um. Hopefully. One of my colleagues will understand, do open source projects looking for solicitation require flow, support with commercial Eda tool vendors.
Jason Hallstrom: Any of my colleagues like to take a crack at that one do open source Projects
Jason Hallstrom: looking for solicitation require flow, support with commercial Eva tool vendors.
Sankar Basu: So if I understand the question correctly, this is because it's talking about. Can you have a commercial Eva tool vendors to get working together with open source community to develop
X. Sharon Hu: the design flows?
X. Sharon Hu: If I understand that if I understand that correctly. Then I would say, Ah, yes, we definitely encourage that type of collaboration. Ah, you know, open source, open source, um open source effort, together with commercial Eva tools. I think that will be a great way to address some of these. Ah, access needs right so. But if I didn't answer, I didn't understand the question correctly. Please clarify
Jason Hallstrom: here.
Jason Hallstrom: We certainly those are allowable costs that could be included within the budget. But we welcome applicants to devise creative ways to cover these licensing costs, so that could be included entirely through the chip hub,
Jason Hallstrom: or it could be a combination of chip called budget, and perhaps that's a
Jason Hallstrom: done type of
Jason Hallstrom: streamlining process.
Jason Hallstrom: So that we we defer to applicants.
Jason Hallstrom: Do you view open-source eva tools as critical to trust in microelectronics? We share your priorities here. The chip of solicit, the
encourages solutions that will span both commercial proprietary tools and open source.
Jason Hallstrom: I mean, I ideally. We would see some.
It's flavor.
Jason Hallstrom: Can you clarify your answer about developing courses?
Jason Hallstrom: Increasing participation will likely require generating and sharing education materials that use the
Jason Hallstrom: tools? Is this in scope?
Jason Hallstrom: Yes, absolutely developing educational materials.
Jason Hallstrom: The chip hub is in scope for the
Jason Hallstrom: Are the two centers to be seen in duplicative or complementary complementary?
Does this solicitation funds, the cost of cloud computing
Jason Hallstrom: for the place and routes flows which can be quite hefty. What about the cost of computing to write and validate? Rgl? Does the Awardi cover it as well? Or is it the responsibility of the user institution?
Jason Hallstrom: So we have tried in developing the budget for the solutions
Jason Hallstrom: to look at anticipated costs for serving a large semiconductor community.
Jason Hallstrom: We believe that the budget ceiling we've put together achieves this With that said we again deferred
provide budgets that make sense for the solutions.
Jason Hallstrom: So if there are cloud computing costs for particular workflows that exceed the available budget for the
Jason Hallstrom: we are looking to applicants to develop ways to offset those costs again potentially by passing some of those costs through
Jason Hallstrom: to users of the chip hug.
Jason Hallstrom: Some of the workshops cited disgust problems
Jason Hallstrom: with exclusively cloud-based design hub solutions. Our cloud-based solutions required. How do we scale and cover the cost of cloud computing. This budget may not be enough to cover it nationally. One.
Jason Hallstrom: So I touched on this. I I test on this to some degree. Already we have
in our studies for this solicitation and the development of the
we have run cost studies to look at the cloud computing costs for running these workflows at national scales.
Jason Hallstrom: We believe that the budget that's in place supports those at an appropriate level for a significant number of users.
Jason Hallstrom: Again, however, if there are workflows that have costs that exceed what is available to the budget of the solicitor. The
Jason Hallstrom: we look to applicants to devise methods
Jason Hallstrom: we're covering those costs potentially through
Jason Hallstrom: for the
Jason Hallstrom: and I am going to need help from my colleagues on this
Jason Hallstrom: are there specific incentives for open-source, Eda, to expand their scope and funding for research in
and within this
X. Sharon Hu: I I will try to take a stab at this. Um! I would say that again like a Jason and Sankar and I will point out the the focus of this solicitation is on infrastructure. If the open source Eda
X. Sharon Hu: development is related to the infrastructure. To justify this is related to infrastructure for supporting and broadening access, and that will be. That will be very. It will be looked very positively
X. Sharon Hu: mit ctl. And if it is trying to solve specific open-source eda like particular component or trying to develop new tools that would not be a high priority one.
Jason Hallstrom: I'm sure.
Jason Hallstrom: So a successful chip design hub needs to include all three main aspects described in the program: Description:
Jason Hallstrom: Idi. A tool
Jason Hallstrom: Pdk's, ip. And Training,
Jason Hallstrom: or can it just focus on a subset of them? I. E. Pdk:
Jason Hallstrom: we're expecting a successful chip-on to support all three
Jason Hallstrom: there. An expectation to pipeline towards k-files the answer is yes. Are you expecting
Jason Hallstrom: leverage from industries? I'm? Sorry i'm not. If I could ask the submitter to rephrase that question, i'm not sure how to interpret it, but there is an expectation
pipeline towards tape out
Jason Hallstrom: will the solicitation cover teacher training costs.
Ewd is part of the proposal.
Jason Hallstrom: It's an interesting question in in full disclosure. I don't think this is one that we had anticipated, and again I invited my colleagues to to to offer their comments on this as well; but if there was funding included within the budget to support
Jason Hallstrom: training to scale out ewd relative to the goals of the Chipmunk, so
that would be in scope for the
Jason Hallstrom: does the cloud expense cover use of high-performance computing like running heavy-duty simulations on Gpu.
Jason Hallstrom: Yes, that would be allowable
Jason Hallstrom: do you anticipate future solicitations that fund research using open Eva and P.
Jason Hallstrom: I don't know that we can comment on that at this stage
Jason Hallstrom: Do we expect co-funding from industry
Jason Hallstrom: to perform t-shirts. That is not an expectation of the solicitor.
Jason Hallstrom: Invite my colleagues to help me with this one. What do you see as the key differentiator between this program and the proposed design enablement Gateway Technology Center within the Nspc. Or has there already been communication between Nsf.
Jason Hallstrom: And the Nftc leaders for how to address the required synergy and or collaboration between these two emerging programs.
X. Sharon Hu: I'll take a step and add it, and then maybe others can also help chip in. Ah Selma has mentioned at the very beginning that the at the high level, the Director level. They have been having monthsly
X. Sharon Hu: meetings with the Department of Commerce Ild. All efforts related to the Chip and Science Act. Now it is true that an Sdc. Has announced this design enablement gateway.
X. Sharon Hu: Ah, but as far as we know Ah, that's still in the kind of development stage. I don't think there's a formal call for proposal came out, and I think we are
X. Sharon Hu: in the discussion with them to see how we can leverage each other's efforts, so we hope to have more collaboration. And that's in the
Jason Hallstrom: she's.
Jason Hallstrom: Is there an expectation that the open source? Eva. Tools are heavily leveraged in the proposed,
Jason Hallstrom: and should be a significant focus of the proposal.
Jason Hallstrom: We are hoping that successful applications
Jason Hallstrom: and open-source eva tools,
Jason Hallstrom: which is the primary focus for proprietary commercials or open source, we defer to applicants.
Jason Hallstrom: So it's entirely possible, for example, that one chip hub was funded, focused primarily on commercial tools, and another was focused primarily on open source.
The hope is that there would be synergy between these two in the underlying infrastructure.
Jason Hallstrom: How our sharing of resources,
Jason Hallstrom: for example, for training resources
Jason Hallstrom: are there guidelines that collaborators must follow? There are no guidelines that are documented within the solicitation. We refer to applicants to establish the most desirable mechanisms
Jason Hallstrom: sharing upstream resources.
Jason Hallstrom: What kind of standards for infrastructure set up for sharing? Do you recommend? We defer to applicants on the best mechanisms to support sharing at scale.
Jason Hallstrom: It is clear that the goal is broadening. The number of institutions that can do chip design Likely this requires any new institutions
Jason Hallstrom: to get access to the licenses of one or more commercial ed
Jason Hallstrom: the responsibility of a successful chip design hub to provide such access to,
Jason Hallstrom: or is the responsibility of, a new institution to gain such access to.
Jason Hallstrom: We are expecting a success
Jason Hallstrom: of to
streamline institutional access to Eva licensing
possible that the chip of the
provide a certain number, a taft number of licenses that are funded directly through the award budget.
Jason Hallstrom: Of course we understand that if the chip pump scales out beyond what's supportable through the award feeling. But it may be necessary to recover some additional costs
Jason Hallstrom: that use those Eva licenses, and we defer to applicants to describe that strategy in their application,
Jason Hallstrom: Jason, I could also add a besides, a little bit on this question. Besides the cost, I think there's also in the
X. Sharon Hu: intellectual property, the Nda's. So those we do, I think the best way is to get this.
X. Sharon Hu: The participating universe, not necessarily. The hub is responsible for, and nda signing. It has to be. The institutions that are going to use these tools should be responsible for the Mba signing between. Ah, say the foundry and the or the foundry or eda tools, and the institution.
Jason Hallstrom: British
Jason Hallstrom: training materials be developed outside the Us. To manage costs.
There is nothing in the solicitation that prohibits
Jason Hallstrom: training materials from being developed out of the United States. But there are restrictions mainly captured within the Ppg. For who may be funded under
as well as other n effects, which,
Jason Hallstrom: if a successful chip design of, must include all three main aspects of the program description.
Jason Hallstrom: Can you give an example of how the two awarded centers might complement one another.
Jason Hallstrom: So there are many possible examples i'll offer to, and of course invite colleagues. So one I touched upon already the
Jason Hallstrom: good evening that one chip hub could focus primarily on commercial tools and commercial design pathways,
Jason Hallstrom: and a second hub could focus on open source pathways. Of course there would be some overlap in the underlying training, but this would be
Jason Hallstrom: one possible example, another possible example, and there are many others. This is not intended to be prescriptive
Jason Hallstrom: that the one chip hub would be funded on traditional Cmos. Any second hub could be focused on Cmos, plus the
more on heterogeneity
Jason Hallstrom: design flows, and so on again, many other examples.
Jason Hallstrom: So i'm going to read this question as a very unsatisfying answer a follow-up question regarding the available budget, The
Jason Hallstrom: What is the rationale for a ceiling of eight million instead of five million? If only ten million is the available funding for this program, a five million dollars ceiling would allow to fund two hundred and five million each forty eight million Julian combination team.
Jason Hallstrom: Far from optimal. The short answer is that this was the total available funding for this program. So that's the short answer. So
Jason Hallstrom: we, of course Ns. Would love to have been able to put this on the street at a higher number to potentially support the
Jason Hallstrom: at eight million each, but that wasn't possible. So the hope is that there will be two that are funded under the solicitation where there will be synergy potentially synergy that is developed at the sort of the pre award stage where there may be an opportunity for the Nfs to help Auster some of the teaming between applicants.
Jason Hallstrom: The infrastructure should be more focused on conventional fmos or Cmos, but X great question we are open to both, so we're certainly open to both. But we are expecting to fund at least one chip of under this felicity
Jason Hallstrom: that is focused on conventional Cmos
Jason Hallstrom: will us-based boundaries to be given priority.
Jason Hallstrom: That is a good question. That's not something that's touched upon within the solicitation I invite my colleagues to offer their perspective on this. But this isn't covered in the solicitation, and on that basis you should not assume a funding priority,
Jason Hallstrom: and i'm going to ask for your help on this one. It relates to some of the past workshops that have been held in this space.
Jason Hallstrom: Have we solicited Ada and or industry for the needs in this area. It's better to have the needs to find for the hubs to focus on.
Sankar Basu: Um. The short answer is, Yes, uh, there was a a workshop precisely to address these questions two years ago. And um! It's actually one of the workshops that was listed in the slide that Sharon presented. So um, one may look it up there.
Jason Hallstrom: The sugar.
Jason Hallstrom: So the next question is the following: Moses used to provide subsidized instructional takeouts for tape-out courses on older technology nodes my understanding that the cost for these instructional payouts was in part supported by the and Nsf. At least in the beginning
Jason Hallstrom: I may have missed this, but is the idea that some of the funding through the
Jason Hallstrom: is not meant to help subsidize Instructional takeoff costs. In other words, universities will need to find other sources of funding to cover the cost of instructional paypal fabrication.
This hub focuses more on providing support
Jason Hallstrom: payouts easier. It is certainly true that this solicitation focuses primarily on providing support to make these instructional payouts easier. However, there is nothing in the solicitation,
Jason Hallstrom: including some funding to support instructional.
Jason Hallstrom: We would certainly not expect that to be the majority of the budget, but that would be an allowable cost to part of the dwd component of the solicitor.
Jason Hallstrom: We have another tape out question.
Jason Hallstrom: I'm a bit confused about the t-out expectation.
Jason Hallstrom: The solicitation in earlier presentation mentioned that boundary takeout is not in scope of this solicitor,
Jason Hallstrom: however, without a prototype shuttle, the chip design hub cannot guarantee the effectiveness or performance of the chicks that are outcome of the home.
Jason Hallstrom: So what is the program's perspective here. If the Awardian tends to perform prototype shuttle,
Jason Hallstrom: this project is the solicitation in support of that. The short answer is, yes. If the awardian tends to perform prototype shuttle tape off the
Jason Hallstrom: that is certainly encouraged under this solicitation, and you're allowed to budget appropriately
Jason Hallstrom: to the previous question. I might also add that Dilma mentioned at the very beginning
Sankar Basu: that there are other. These there are these Dcl's which support and um those are still active. And Ah! In addition to cheaper funding, when we also seek funding from those Dcs, if necessary.
Jason Hallstrom: She's
Jason Hallstrom: who is ensuring this Hub's effort is in synergy with the microelectronic commons
Jason Hallstrom: hubs that were recently formed. How do we together avoid spinning of the similar wheels? So certainly the the National Science Foundation is aware of the work that's happening in the context of the microelectronic commons in terms of ensuring that there is not duplicative effort between the so
Jason Hallstrom: submitted and the existing hubs that have been formed the eight hubs that were formed earlier. This doesn't actually wait last year. Again, we rely on our pis to ensure that the submissions that come in or not.
Jason Hallstrom: Of course we certainly encourage potential applicants to review the work that's already being done across the eight hubs that have been formed through the Microelectronics Commons funded under Dod.
Jason Hallstrom: Many technologies that can be readily fabricated in silicon
Jason Hallstrom: are designated ect and three thousand nine hundred and ninety one citizens from certain countries will not be able to act.
Jason Hallstrom: It's a problem. This is an excellent question. Yes, absolutely. This is something that ought to be considered by tis who are submitting to this program. Yes, indeed, this would have to be managed. Export control,
Jason Hallstrom: documented and managed through a successful
Jason Hallstrom: How do you view advanced node flows for its traditional Cmos in terms of priorities.
Jason Hallstrom: We will definitely fund a traditional Cmos
Jason Hallstrom: under this solicitation, and if funding allows, we will focus on more advanced flows, and certainly more advanced flows can be included with any traditional,
Jason Hallstrom: and it looks like we have no further questions, so perhaps we can wait a couple minutes to see if any more come in.
Jason Hallstrom: Can the National Science Foundation help community colleges or high schools
Jason Hallstrom: to find local four-year institutions
Jason Hallstrom: to join the design hub versus it's entirely decided by the institution.
Jason Hallstrom: I'm. Not. I'm not entirely sure I I understand the question,
Jason Hallstrom: so it's certainly post-door and nsf will be happy to support advertising for the checkhog or chip hugs that are formed through the.
Jason Hallstrom: It is the expectation of the Nsf. That the chipmunk formed under the solicitation,
Jason Hallstrom: and would be broadly open to colleges and universities across the country.
Jason Hallstrom: I'm not sure if I've answered that question and invite the
Jason Hallstrom: submit her to to pose that again and find if I didn't answer it properly.
Jason Hallstrom: Export control. Follow up. I thought, this is focused on us educational users. Yes, that's correct.
Jason Hallstrom: You saying that we manage export control to foreign nationals as Us. Institutions?
Jason Hallstrom: Yes, if there are foreign nationals who would access this
from us, institution
is absolutely the case that the expert controls would apply in those circumstances, and we would expect the chips to
Jason Hallstrom: to help manage or to help institutions manage those controls. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that the chip hub administrators are managing that load by themselves. But we would expect the chip of to address how that would be managed potentially by pushing that to the institutional users to the institution to sign off
on who is allowed to access
Jason Hallstrom: two of them design for
Jason Hallstrom: again, the Cape out costs for prototyping by the users of the hub are not assumed to be funded by the hub budget. They are not assumed to be funded, but you may include them within the budget. We would not expect the prototyping cost to reflect the majority of the chip hub budget
Jason Hallstrom: that those are allowable costs under this solution.
X. Sharon Hu: Ah, Jason! So just to be clear, the that this prototyping has to be has to focus on testing out the infrastructure, not for a new research idea, another Ai accelerator, type of thing.
Jason Hallstrom: Great. Thank you, Sharon. I'm. In a Community college How do I join the Hub?
Jason Hallstrom: I'm. I'm. Afraid that we can't answer that today. So it it depends on how the hubs are ultimately established Post awards. We would however, expect there to be an open-inclusive process for community colleges and other in
in the higher education
Jason Hallstrom: to join the national chip hubs. That are formed
Jason Hallstrom: Are there any restrictions or regulations in the use of generative Ai for flows or training material.
Jason Hallstrom: There are no restrictions documented in this politic
Jason Hallstrom: in the use of generative Ai for either of those purposes.
Jason Hallstrom: We do want to emphasize, however, that the intent of this is to
Jason Hallstrom: associated services. It is not to directly support. Research.
Jason Hallstrom: So if there is a
a new generative ai-based approach
Jason Hallstrom: for design blows that you want to explore under this solicitation it would not be an appropriate venue for that
Jason Hallstrom: along the same lines of the question when providing access to you
Jason Hallstrom: two licenses?
Jason Hallstrom: Is it the responsibility of a success?
Jason Hallstrom: Its design, Hub. To provide the new institutions with access to one or more fab for fabricating the chip. Design. Tape out that the hub has enabled the
Jason Hallstrom: That's a very interesting question. So we would expect the chip hub to point users to destination for fabrication based on the Ip and Pdk,
that the chip hub provides access to the
Jason Hallstrom: I hope that answered the question,
Jason Hallstrom: and Shank or Sharon, I invite you to to
Jason Hallstrom: to provide additional feedback here. But the question is, what kind of organizational alliances do you recommend, if at all. This is normally something that we would defer to applicants on types of alliances that make the most sense for the particular hub that you're proposing. But again invite my colleagues to offer any of their thoughts they may have On this
X. Sharon Hu: I agree what you said
Jason Hallstrom: so again. No additional questions at this time we'll wait a couple of minutes to see if any more come in.
Okay, I believe we've answered all of the questions and share an alternative to you for closing remarks.
Jason Hallstrom: Oh, no, i'm sorry one came back.
Jason Hallstrom: Um! So this this question has come in a couple of times, and I I think we've answered it, but we'll. But perhaps i'm not answering it as well as folks who'd like to let me take another crack at them. But I follow a question regarding the available budget. What is the rationale for a ceiling of eight million instead of five?
Jason Hallstrom: The the and so on. So it's like only ten million is available for the total budget. Again, the the short answer is that this was the total funding that was available to support this program. We would love to have had a program where it was possible to fund two chip homes each at eight million, but that was not possible with the budget that's available.
Jason Hallstrom: So our hope by providing a budget that is above eight million is that it may be possible for us to fund one chip, hub,
Jason Hallstrom: primary hub, and perhaps a secondary hub or two complementary hub of equal size.
I hope that answers the question.
Sankar Basu: I I believe that the important thing to note here is that the two hubs, if we fund two, we don't necessarily have to fund to, may not be duplicating, so we are certainly not looking forward to funding two duplicative projects.
Jason Hallstrom: Can. Nsf. Requires the lead applicant
Jason Hallstrom: to prove It has been inclusive to open invitation
Jason Hallstrom: to high school community colleges, etc.
Jason Hallstrom: I have seen closed invitations, and most are not aware of such.
Jason Hallstrom: And it's an interesting question.
Jason Hallstrom: The short answer is, No. So the short answer is, No Nsf. Cannot introduce that requirement, now that the solicitation has already been posted, so the solicitation itself won't change.
Jason Hallstrom: Likewise, we would not ordinarily expect Pis as part of the application
Jason Hallstrom: to document that they were inclusive
Jason Hallstrom: in developing the team that developed the solicitor.
Jason Hallstrom: I'm sorry That's developed a proposal response.
Jason Hallstrom: However, we would expect a
echo chip hub
Jason Hallstrom: response, a proposal to document the ways in which access to the Chip Club and its supporting tools would be provided at national scale to a broad range of users, including community colleges, potentially high school and other institutions of higher education.
Jason Hallstrom: I hope that answers the question
X. Sharon Hu: right? So I guess I could ship in a bit more if I understand the question,
X. Sharon Hu: if you're trying to understand the question. But we're better. There's two phases. One is in the proposal preparation phase in that phase. We like, Jason, said we, the solicitation what does does not require any? Ah, P. I. Or lead institutions as to
X. Sharon Hu: ensure that they have an open process, or they open their invitation to everybody who
X. Sharon Hu: want to participate in the proposal stage. However, the proposal itself after it's written, and it will be evaluated on how well it's going to engage the user community. So in that sense that openness will be addressed in the proposal and also in the proposal evaluation process,
Jason Hallstrom: and perhaps just to add one more thoughts to that. Thank you, Sharon. So, as Shankar mentioned earlier in the Webinar, this will be managed in the cooperative agreement. The part of the reason that this program is going to be managed as a cooperative agreement. I should say awards to this program will be managed as a cooperative agreement.
Jason Hallstrom: Precisely for questions of this forum. So we want to be sure that year to year that the Chip hub is meeting the goal of this program that indeed it is providing access to a broad class of institutions
Jason Hallstrom: users. So if hypothetically, if we had a chip hu that was funded in two years into the program. We saw that only a certain class or group of institutions
Jason Hallstrom: through the hub. That's the kind of thing that we would take to adjust through the cooperative agreement language. The
X. Sharon Hu: Yes, that's an excellent point, Jason.
Jason Hallstrom: So, Sharon, I don't think we have any additional questions, and so I will turn it to you for closing remarks. And and of course, if anyone has questions following the Webinar, don't hesitate to reach out to us. Um, we'll get back to you quickly.
Jason Hallstrom: I turn it to you. Make sure.
X. Sharon Hu: Great. Yeah, Thank you very much. Jason, and Sankar and all of you the Pds who were presenting here. I just want to point out that again. Think! Am I sharing the screen trying to
X. Sharon Hu: bring up my
X. Sharon Hu: so just want to again. Thank you all for attending this Webinar, and also for your interest in this Andsf Chip design, hub, solicitation. And again, as I have repeatedly pointed out that if you have questions that we Haven't answered, you know, think of other questions later on. Feel free to reach out to us via this email at chip underscore, hub and andsf go,
X. Sharon Hu: and also the web Webinar materials will be posted online. And also, you know. Thank Ah, please help spread the words, and people who are interested want to know more. You can help to help and asf to spread the words about the solicitation, and with that I will say best wishes for your success, and have a great day. Bye, bye,