Welcome to Daniel D. Gajski's Web Site

Biography

Daniel D. Gajski received the Dipl. Ing. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and the Ph.D. degree in Computer and Information Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

After 10 years of industrial experience in Europe and the United States in digital circuits, telecommunication systems, supercomputer design, and VLSI structures, he spent 10 years in academia with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Presently, he is a Professor in the School of Information and Computer Science and the School of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests are in embedded systems and information technology, design methodologies, specification languages and CAD software, and the science of design. He is editor of the book, Silicon Compilation (Addison-Wesley, 1988), a co-author of the books, High Level Synthesis: An Introduction to Chip and System Design (Kluwer-Academic, 1992) and Specification and Design of Embedded Systems (Prentice Hall, 1994), and the author of Principles of Digital Design (Prentice Hall, 1995).

Philosophy

Research in Embedded Systems Design (ESD) addresses the various aspects of bridging the gap between the demands of new applications and available technology. The ESD concentration is designed to produce computer scientists with an increased awareness of the demands imposed on computers by the application domains which have traditionally been viewed as extrinsic to computer science. This application sensitivity will give students a unique advantage in the increasingly important area of integrated software/hardware computer and application systems and will prepare them to meet the challenges of real-world problems. The ESD research paradigm prepares our students to conceptualize a system design, prototype it and take it all the way to an efficient system implementation with the right balance of hardware and software components.

Achievements

I am working on many aspects of Design Science studying design process from specification to manufacturing to business models. My students and I have developed new methodologies for design process, and techniques for specification modeling of embeded computer systems. I am also working on specification languages and algorithms for design partitioning, estimation, synthesis and verification of software and hardware.

My research group has developed a methodology and tools which improve design process and productivity by 2 orders of magnitude. Presently we are developing a new methodology for specification and design of embedded systems. We have recently published a book Embedded System Design that describes the basic principles and techniques of embedded design methodology.

Research Interests

I am particularly interested in requirements and specifications of embedded systems and the design process that leads from an executable specification to the final manufacturable blueprint. In order to study the design process, my group is developing new specification languages and modeling guidelines, as well as simulation, synthesis, and verification tools. In order to obtain efficient specifications and design models we are taxonomizing models of computations, platform architectures and design styles. In order to develop efficient CAD tools we are studying synthesis algorithms for systems, architectures, processors, controllers, datapaths, and other intellectual properties (IPs). Our further goal is to build proof-of-concept tools and prove our methodology for different application domains and tools on extensive industrial strength examples.