Should the Design Automation Conference Colocate with SEMICON West?

Should the Design Automation Conference Colocate with SEMICON West?
by Daniel Nenni on 07-03-2013 at 8:10 pm

My friend and fellow blogger Kurt Shuler wrote recently, “DAC Is Dead? Long Live DAC!”, which is worth a click over. In addition to providing a nice attendance graph and the top three reasons why it is NOT all rosy, Kurt suggests colocating DAC with other conferences (DESIGN West) but fails to mention SEMICON West.

SEMICON West is Read More


Aart: Technomic Push-Pull

Aart: Technomic Push-Pull
by Paul McLellan on 06-26-2013 at 11:00 pm

Aart de Geus gave one of the visionary look to the next 50 years of EDA as a warmup to Stephen Wu’s keynote. EDA is enabling the greatest push-pull ever, part of an exponential change on a scale never before seen.

Technologies seem to go through a 50 year technical push phase (driven by improving the technology) followed by a 50… Read More


Kathryn Kranen: The Problem with EDA is…

Kathryn Kranen: The Problem with EDA is…
by Paul McLellan on 06-25-2013 at 5:35 pm

Kathryn Kranen, CEO of Jasper Design Automation, got to give her view of the future of EDA on the Thursday of DAC. For many years she has been on the EDAC board and is currently chair. When she first was on the board she talked to many of the stakeholders in the EDA ecosystem: EDA companies, IP companies, semiconductor companies, academics,… Read More


Pat Pistilli: the first cell library, the first computer-printed label and more

Pat Pistilli: the first cell library, the first computer-printed label and more
by Paul McLellan on 06-22-2013 at 1:45 pm

At the DAC 50th anniversary banquet, Pat Pistilli won the award for most tenacious attendee, having been to all 50 DACs. Well, and for creating DAC and sustaining it. He was general chair for the first DAC (not yet called DAC) and, of course, would eventually form MP Associates with his wife Marie, which still runs DAC today. In 2010… Read More


DAC by the Numbers

DAC by the Numbers
by Paul McLellan on 06-20-2013 at 12:03 pm

The attendance numbers for DAC are out. Unless you have been living under a stone you know that DAC was in Austin Texas a couple of weeks ago. Attendance was:

  • full conference passes: 1589
  • exhibits-only passes: 2364
  • booth staff: 1998

The registration is slightly lower than last year when DAC was in San Francisco (as it will be again … Read More


Missed #50DAC? See Aldec Verification Sessions Online

Missed #50DAC? See Aldec Verification Sessions Online
by Daniel Nenni on 06-13-2013 at 12:00 am

Aldec, Inc. is an industry-leading Electronic Design Automation (EDA) company delivering innovative design creation, simulation and verification solutions to assist in the development of complex FPGA, ASIC, SoC and embedded system designs. With an active user community of over 35,000, 50+ global partners, offices worldwide… Read More


Hardware Assisted Verification

Hardware Assisted Verification
by Paul McLellan on 06-10-2013 at 9:00 pm

On the Tuesday of DAC I moderated a panel session on Hardware Assisted Verification in 10 Years: More Need, More Speed. Although this topic obviously could include FPGA-based prototyping, in fact we spent pretty much the whole time talking about emulation. Gary Smith, on Sunday night, actually set up things by pointing out that… Read More


First FinFETs Manufactured at #50DAC!

First FinFETs Manufactured at #50DAC!
by Daniel Nenni on 06-09-2013 at 5:00 pm


This was my 30[SUP]th[/SUP] DAC and the second most memorable. The most memorable was my second DAC (1985) in Las Vegas with my new bride. We had a romantic evening ending with ice cream sundaes at midnight that we still talk about. This year SemiWiki had Dr. Paul McLellan, Dr. Eric Esteve, Daniel Payne, Don Dingee, Randy Smith, and… Read More


DAC IP Workshop: Are You Ready For Quality Control?

DAC IP Workshop: Are You Ready For Quality Control?
by Paul McLellan on 06-07-2013 at 3:08 am

On Sunday I attended an IP workshop which was presented by TSMC, Atrenta, Sonics and IPextreme. It turns out that the leitmotiv of the afternoon was SpyGlass.

Dan Kochpatcharin of TSMC was first up and gave a little bit of history of the company. They built up their capacity over the years, as I’ve written about before, and last… Read More


ARM: AMBA 5, Cortex-A12, Mali, video, POP…

ARM: AMBA 5, Cortex-A12, Mali, video, POP…
by Paul McLellan on 06-06-2013 at 4:39 pm

ARM announced several new products at DAC in a number of different spaces. In addition I got invited to a briefing with Simon Segars, 30 days from when he takes over as CEO of ARM. I asked Simon if he expected to make any major changes and he basically said ‘no’. ARM’s basic strategy in both mobile and now enterprise… Read More