TOYONAGA MASAHIKOwas born in Hyogo, Japan, in 1956. He received B.S. from Yamaguchi University, in 1979, M.S. from Kobe University, in 1981, and Ph.D. degrees in electronics engineering from Osaka University, Japan, in 1995. He joined Matsushita Electronics Corporation in 1982. He joined to Semiconductor Research Center of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., in 1993. He joined to Technology Liaison Office in Semiconductor Company of Matsushita Electronics Corporation, and the consortiam of Semiconductor Research Institute of Japan, in 2000. He is a professor of the Faculity of Science in Kochi University since 2002. His research interests include logic/high-level synthesis, and physical design synthesis of VLSI circuit, and stochastic optimization methods for design automation. He is a member of IEEE, Institute of Electronics Information and Communication Engineers and Information Processing Society of Japan.