Dr. Lou Scheffer received his BS, MS from Caltech in 1974 and 1975 respectively; and his PhD from Stanford in 1983. Dr. Scheffer started as a chip designer - he then got into CAD and worked for Valid for 10 years . His main research interests are placement, routing, floorplanning and DFM in particular the effects of modern processes and the need for statistical timing. Other interests are SETI and radio astronomy. He has been with Cadence since 1991 and is a Cadence Fellow. He has also been an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on CAD.