The 46th annual Design Automation conference takes place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco July 27-30. It will be the 20th conference for me and I have to admit I am not as excited about going as I was in the early ’90s.
Back then it was a much broader conference with papers about FPGA design and PCB interconnect timing modeling. Now there is little other than chip design. Not that chip design isn’t exciting – its just not what I do. I suspect most EEs are not chip designers either. However, I suspect the bulk of the revenue being taken in by the EDA companies is related to chip design.
That said, I will still attend DAC this year. It remains the single best conference for meeting industry folk that I tend to meet only once a year.
While I head off to DAC each year with mild enthusiasm and low expectations, I have always come back with more new contacts and useful information than I had anticipated. So, once again, I will see you at DAC.
Don’t miss the Denali party!