2020 Synopsys ARC Demo Day

[Important Announcement] 

 The 2020 Synopsys ARC AIoT Design Contest was originally canceled due to the prevention of the Novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak. But as the outbreak slows in Taiwan, students and their advisors hope to continue work on the projects and to complete the learning experiences. Thus, Synopsys invites the contest teams to join ARC Demo Day scheduled on Jul. 30 to demo projects in AIoT applications. ARC Demo Day will be held based on the same contest topic, submission requirement, evaluation criteria, and the same award amount as the original ARC AIoT Design Contest.

Background:

• To encourage university students to develop innovative designs that meet the needs of semiconductor industry, Synopsys hosts its ARC Design Contest since 2015. This event echoes the recent AIoT trend and aims to facilitate students’ hands-on projects combining SoC design and software related to AIOT (AI+IoT, Artificial Intelligence + Internet of Things) applications.
• The ARC Design Contest invites students from key universities in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific region. Through a six-month period of proposal and content evaluations, students learn the concept for IoT application and build their abilities in hands-on project design.
• The competition is integrated with university course design, Camp, workshop and other training activities. With the guidance from Synopsys professional technical support team, students will build deeper understanding for the development and technology of the Internet of Things.
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Contest Scope:

• Organizer: Synopsys Taiwan
• Co-organizer: GLORIA-NCTU / ASVDA College
• Technical Partner: Taiwan IC Design Society (TICD)
• Venue:
  • Preliminary Contest: Online submission
  • Final Contest: National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan)
• Timeline:

Contest Topic: 

• Participants will design their projects base on ARC IoT Development Kit (IoTDK) to create smart innovation applications under the theme “Smart Life & Connect Everything”. The project may include: facilitating Machine Learning inference for IoT: voice trigger, face trigger, NN, etc.

Contest Process:

• Synopsys will provide software and hardware development tools required for this competition.
• The participating teams will build their projects based on ARC IoTDK Kit development board and solve the problems residing in realistic settings.
• The selection of the topics is encouraged to derive from embARC, an open source software platform of Synopsys. The proposed projects are suggested to focus on popular applications: IoT (Internet of Things), embedded and control design, and relevant creation of projects related to innovative products, services and technologies, such as wearable devices, smart home, environmental protection, medical treatment, safety, and so forth.

ARC Technical Support Modules:

• embARC portal
  https://embarc.org/
• embARC OSP & documentation
  https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/embarc_osp 
  https://embarc.org/embarc_osp/doc/build/html/index.html 
• ARC kits documentation
  https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/ARC-Development-Systems-Forum/wiki/ARC-Development-Systems-Forum-Wiki-Home 
• ARC course labs
  https://github.com/foss-for-synopsys-dwc-arc-processors/arc_labs
  https://embarc.org/arc_labs/doc/build/html/index.html
• Previous Winner Projects
  https://contest.synopsys.com.tw/2019ARC/PreviousWinner

Prizes: 

• First Place (x 1 team): NTD 80,000 and certification
• Second Place (x 1 team): NTD 50,000 and certification
• Third Place (x 1 team): NTD 30,000 and certification
• Excellence (several): NTD 15,000 and certification

Evaluation Criteria:

Creativity, Novelty and Complexity, High Efficiency, Work Display, Functionality and practicality

Qualifications and Restrictions:

• This Contest is open to all students currently enrolled in colleges or universities. The participants must be a student registered and is attending colleges or universities during the Contest period (from now until July 31, 2020) and shall not be working in any company, research institute or other entity on a full-time basis.
• Participants will join the contest as a team, which can be consisted of up to 3 participants (students). Each team can invite one or two advisors (professors) to supervise during the Contest period.
• Each participant is required to sign a consent documentation for the Contest and agree to follow all the provisions in the consent documentations. If there is any non-compliance or violation of such provision, the participant will be disqualified from the Contest. If there is any dispute on the compliance issue, the Contest Organizer shall have the sole authority to decide on such dispute.
• Please do not submit the same project to other similar IoT contest or competitions.
• Each participant should acknowledge and agree that the project submitted to the Contest may be posted on Synopsys internal and external websites.

Registration Instructions and Submission Requirements:

• Document review: The judges will select the qualified teams from the entries (PPT format) to participate in the preliminary competition. The actual number of teams entering the preliminary contest will be adjusted by the judges and the organizers according to the actual situation. The documents should be submitted by March 29th, 2020.
• Preliminary review: The judges will select the qualified teams from the preliminary contest (PPT format with further explanation) to participate in the final competition. The actual number of teams entering the final will be adjusted by the judges and the organizers according to the actual situation. The documents should be submitted by May 24th, 2020.
• Final contest should include：Project PPT, Video, Photos, and the link to website
• Presentation file：Follow standard format in ppt or pdf version
• Project Video：Video upload via registration website
• Project Photo: 5-6 pics
• Please refer to registration web page for competition submission requirements and the template of PPT

Contest Contact: 

Anna Hsu (chunhsu@synopsys.com)