When people ask which DAC is the most memorable I used to say my first because I was a new college grad and it really was exciting. The next DAC was memorable since it was in Las Vegas and my beautiful wife joined me. This year was DAC number 30 for me and of course it will be the most memorable since I signed hundreds of copies of “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” during the book signing Tuesday night and signed more just walking around the exhibit hall, and for that I thank everyone.
When Paul McLellan, Daniel Payne and I started blogging on SemiWiki in 2011 we wanted to bring social media to the semiconductor industry. It was our feeling that if you wanted to get the younger generation involved you had to speak their language. Fortunately I have four children who taught me how to speak it and now SemiWiki has surpassed the one million user milestone. What an amazing experience this has been, absolutely.
When Paul McLellan, Beth Martin, and I decided to write a book the motivation really was to bring the history of the fabless semiconductor industry to an even wider audience. We made good progress this week by giving away 1,500 books with the help of eSilicon, Atrenta, Tanner EDA, Solido, and EDA Direct. Online sales of the eBook had another spike this week as well and for that I again thank you all.
DAC seemed to be somewhat “mature” this year (I’m surprised AARP did not have a booth) but the technical content was very good based on the presentations I attended. The foundries were the stars of the show in my opinion. TSMC, Samsung, and SMIC all had theaters with non-stop ecosystem presentations. I give the highest honors to Samsung since they showed working 14nm silicon in their booth. I also give best presentation to Philippe Magarshack for his talk on 28nm FD-SOI and very candid answers to my questions.
Where was Intel Foundry? They were doing what they do best, putting out EDA press releases that meant absolutely nothing.
My wife’s best DAC experience was handing out books and watching me sign them. Shushana was intimately involved in the publishing of the book so she knows what an effort it was. She also appreciated that the women’s bathrooms were never crowded. Her worst DAC experience was seeing John Cooley in cargo shorts, seriously, that has to stop. The best booth design/theme, according to my wife and I agree, was Ansys. Great design, very eye catching, very artistic.
The EDAC kick-off party was very good. My wife and I enjoyed listening to Sonia Harrison sing. We also spent quality time with some of the Heroes of EDA. The best party we attended was by ClioSoft at the Press Club. They gave away a pair of Google Glass! We also got a very nice bottle of La Follette Pinot Noir as a parting gift. This was a very classy affair by a very classy company. My wife and I skipped the mosh pit DAC parties and I skipped the dinners that did not also invite my wife. All-in-all a very entertaining week!
There will be many more #51DAC blogs to come so stay tuned. I just wanted to share a first glance and thank everyone involved. DAC is an institution that we should all support, absolutely.
Also read Impressions of #51DAC
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