Yunqi He

Yunqi He

Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Engineering — Physical Design Methodology & ML for EDA

News & Updates

Here’s a comprehensive list of my recent activities, publications, and academic service.

  • Jul 2026. Our paper **Quality-Preserving Legalization for Analytical Floorplanning** was accepted to **ICCAD 2026** (to appear).
  • Jun 2026. Returned to **Cadence Design Systems** as an R&D intern, building GNN-based routing congestion prediction for the Palladium (Z4) emulator.
  • Apr 2026. Our journal paper **Graph Neural Network based Initialization for Timing Driven Placement** appeared in **ACM TODAES**.
  • Jan 2026. Awarded the **Northwestern University Terminal Year Fellowship** (2026).
  • Nov 2025. Our paper **Physical-Aware eFPGA Redaction for Secure and Efficient Hardware IP Protection** was accepted to **DATE 2026**.
  • Sep 2025. Submitted a paper on eFPGA-based hardware IP protection techniques to DATE 2026.
  • Sep 2025. A paper on AI accelerator security with hardware-software co-design approaches passed phase 1 review at AAAI 2026.
  • Sep 2025. Serving as TA for COMP_ENG 203 "Introduction to Computer Engineering" (Fall 2025).
  • Apr 2025. Serving as TA for COMP_ENG 357 "Design Automation in VLSI" (Spring 2025).
  • Feb 2025. Our paper **RE3: Finding Refinement Relations with Relational Mapping Abstraction** was accepted by DAC 2025.
  • Dec 2024. Our paper **LLA: Enhancing Security and Privacy for Generative Models with Logic-Locked Accelerators** was accepted by AAAI 2025.
  • Nov 2024. Our paper **DE2: SAT-based sequential logic decryption with a functional description** was accepted by DATE 2025.
  • Oct 2024. Our paper **Multimodal Bayesian Networks for Automatic Skin Disease Diagnosis** was accepted by BIBM 2024.
  • Jun 2024. Joined **Cadence Design Systems** as an R&D intern, integrating GPU-accelerated placement (DREAMPlace) into the Palladium (Z3) flow with 6–12× speedup on industrial designs.
  • Feb 2024. Our paper **Evaluating the Security of Logic Locking on Deep Neural Networks** was accepted by DAC 2024.
  • Jan 2024. Served as TA for COMP_ENG 203 "Introduction to Computer Engineering" (Winter 2024).
  • Spring 2023. Served as TA for COMP_ENG 303 "Advanced Digital Design".
  • Winter 2023. Served as TA for COMP_ENG 205 "Fundamentals of Computer System Software".
  • Fall 2021. Served as TA for COMP_ENG 334 "Fundamentals of Blockchains and Decentralization".

For recent highlights, visit the homepage or explore my research projects and publications.