Awesome DAC: Advice on How to Add to Your DAC Experience

Join us at DAC in San Francisco in 12 Days

This issue is the most voluminous one in the history of DACeZine.  We have a record number of articles that provide valuable information for EDA practitioners, discuss technology issues that will be covered at the conference, preview interesting panel discussions, and offer last-minute news about DAC.  And we also keep you abreast of the latest happenings in the sponsors' organizations.

As you will read, the upcoming DAC will be many things, but certainly neither irrelevant nor boring.  The state of the economy is depressing, work, for those who have it, is more demanding than ever, and short-term goals seem much more important than looking a couple of years ahead.  Yet, you cannot afford to miss DAC this year: those who only react to short-term conditions will be unprepared when the turnaround comes – and it will. Read all about it here and find its incipient signals at the conference.

If you or your family need to know what else is going on in San Francisco during the week of DAC, the article "DAC and King Tut Together in San Francisco, will give you plenty of ideas on how to round your experience in this wonderful and eclectic city.

As you'll read in "DAC and King Tut," the news from DAC is that Free Monday is back!  As you may have read by now, two different organizations, EDAC, an official DAC sponsor, and a trio of EDA vendors that call themselves "The DAC Fan Club" are making passes to the exhibit area (Monday - Thursday) available to qualified professionals.

The article by Jonathan Kaplan, "Has Willful Infringement Been Tamed?," discusses the issue of Intellectual Property rights and procedures on how to protect it.  This is an extremely well-researched article, a must read for everyone, but especially for senior management.

Sean Murphy writes about a phenomenon that is sweeping the Marketing departments of our industry: social media.  His piece, "Impact of Social Media Tools on the Speed of Team Decision Making," forecasts some opportunities for the engineering teams to use social media to improve efficiency.

Addressing an area that has seen a large number of technical papers presented at DAC in the past, and that has important papers presented in the upcoming session, Neil Carney of Tela Innovations writes about DFM in his article titled "Design-Process Co-optimization - The Real DFM."

Another article with the word "real" in the title is "Real Men (and Women!) Use IP" by well-known professionals Holly Stump and David Lin.  Jasper and Denali team to consider this most important aspect of a sector that in the past has been the subject of debate regarding whether it belongs in the EDA market or in the semiconductor sector.  Judging by the attention given to it at the upcoming conference, I would say it is part of EDA (as I have always maintained).

Agnisys is a new company exhibiting for the first time.  Founder and CEO, Anupam Bakshi has written an insightful article titled: "Why Come to DAC in this Economy?"  It is another reminder that smart companies use a downturn to invest for the future, not just cut costs to safeguard the present bottom line.

DAC this year introduces a Users Track dedicated to issues faced by designers as they perform their daily tasks.  Read "Designers to Share Real-World Experiences at DAC User Track" to plan your attendance.

ChipEstimate is offering a number of talks about IP at its "IP Talks!" booth.  You can read more about it in the "Leading IP Suppliers Discuss Latest in Semiconductor IP" article by Sean O’Kane.

TSMC North America offers a preview of activities in the Open Innovation Platform area on the DAC exhibit floor in "TSMC and Partners Preparing for the Upturn with the Open Innovation Platform."  One of the many reasons to be at DAC, visit the exhibit area, and take away valuable information that is relevant to your job.

The plenary panel Thursday titled "How Green is my Silicon Valley?," addresses the role EDA can play in the green economy.  You can get a taste of things to come from the article "The Many Shades of Green at DAC."

The article by Bill Heiser, "Interoperable PDKs for Analog: Will They Fly?" gives a taste of the controversy surrounding the efforts to improve analog design automation.  The subject will be discussed in one of the many interesting DAC Pavilion panels taking place on the Exhibit Floor.

For more previews of panels taking place in the DAC Pavilion on the exhibit floor, you should read "Landing a Good Job in a Bad Economy" and "The New Future of Design Automation Research."  Click here to quickly find the entire schedule of Pavilion Panels.

DAC is also an opportunity to recognize the technical achievements of leading professionals in electronic design.  In addition to prizes that will be presented during the plenary session Tuesday morning, the article, "UC Berkeley Team to Receive First ACM/IEEE A. Richard Newton Technical Impact Award in Electronic Design Automation" describes the impact of seminal work on synthesis technology carried out by the winners of this award.

The official DAC sponsors make the conference possible.  One of them, ACM-SIGDA, has just held the election of officers.  You can get acquainted with the new team that will assist in developing the upcoming conferences in the article "ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation Executive Committee Elected."

Finally do not forget the Tuesday luncheon organized by the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation.  Find the details in "News from DAC Sponsor IEEE Council on EDA (CEDA)."

All I can add is: See you there!

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