Electronic Design Community Gathered in Anaheim for 45th Design Automation Conference (DAC).

BOULDER, Colo. -- The 45th Design Automation Conference (DAC), the electronic design automation (EDA) industry's premier event, attracted 7,770 designers, researchers, developers, academics, and executives in EDA, chip, and electronics companies to the Anaheim Convention Center June 8 - 13. The exhibit floor, where more than 215 companies were represented, hummed with activity, the three keynotes were filled to capacity and the technical sessions drew large crowds as attendees discussed new challenges in the EDA industry and the latest solutions available.

"This year, DAC succeeded in continuing its long-standing tradition as the place where the electronics design industry meets, while also expanding with new offerings to meet the evolving needs of our participants," Limor Fix, general chair of the 45th DAC executive committee. "The feedback from attendees and exhibitors on DAC's new initiatives this year has been very positive."

Out of the 215 companies and organizations that exhibited at DAC this year, already 173 have committed to participate at the 46th DAC. The 46th DAC will be held July 26 - 31, 2009 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

45th DAC Highlights

The number of colocated events increased to 14 this year, expanding attendees' opportunities to capitalize on their learning experience at DAC by gaining a wider understanding of the latest developments in the EDA field. The workshops and events covered a wide range of topics including low power and systems design as well as business topics. The technical program featured 138 papers in 36 technical sessions.

The ballrooms in the Anaheim Convention Center were filled to standing room only for all three keynote presentations. On Tuesday, June 10, Justin R. Rattner, chief technology officer, Intel and an Intel Senior Fellow, delivered the opening keynote address on "EDA for Digital, Programmable, Multi-Radios," in which he predicted the impact of the EDA industry's move toward ubiquitous use of wireless communications. Dr. Sanjay K. Jha, chief operating officer and President, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies Group, gave his keynote on Wednesday, June 11. Jha's presentation, "Challenges on Design Complexities for Advanced Wireless Silicon Systems," addressed the impact of accelerating demand for 3G technology and its effect on the global wireless landscape. On Thursday, June 12, Jack Little, President and co-founder of The MathWorks, gave the final keynote, "Idea to Implementation: A Different Perspective on System Design," in which he addressed the challenges engineers face in creating the multifaceted, software-intensive systems common in today's electronics.

The fourth annual Management Day took place on Tuesday, June 10 and featured presentations by seven notable leaders from companies such as Intel, Qualcomm and Microsoft. The speakers addressed the latest changes in design requirements and shared some personal examples of decision-making criteria. Ron Wilson, of EDN, chaired the opening panel, "Managing Low Power SoC Development on Emerging Technology Nodes."

In light of the current presidential election, DAC hosted a debate featuring panelists from around the electronics industry. Pete Weitzner, co-anchor of KDOC-TV's "Daybreak OC," moderated the panel, "Electronics and Politics: What the Industry Needs - and Can Expect - from the Incoming U.S. Administration," which touched on important business, legislative and policy initiatives.

In a special "Design Automation Day for High School Students" event on Monday, June 9 local Orange County high school students attended the conference. DAC invited these potential future engineers to learn about the EDA industry. In his presentation "How do you spell EDA" renowned engineer, journalist and EDA industry veteran and site editor of Programmable Logic DesignLine, Clive Maxfield, gave the students an accessible and entertaining introduction to this complex subject. The students also attended the presentation of the Student Design Contest winners and visited the University Booth to see projects by college students in this field.

This year also marked the highly popular debut of the first annual Best of DAC Awards, honoring exhibitors' innovation and commitment to the industry. Conference attendees cast their votes at computer kiosks around the convention center for various awards. Among the winners were Apache Design Solutions for the "Best Overall New Product" for its Sentinel-PI and also for "Best Demonstration on Exhibit Floor" for SoC Power, Noise, Reliability Analysis. Duolog Technologies Ltd was awarded "Most Interesting First Time Exhibitor" and Synopsys Inc. received the "Most Interesting Veteran Exhibitor" award. Synopsys also won the "Best Booth" and the Synopsys Common Platform Partner booth was awarded the "Best Booth Giveaway."

Video synchronized with presentations for this year's keynote sessions are available on the DAC Web site, www.dac.com, free of charge, as a service to the DAC community.

About DAC

The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is recognized as the premier event for the design of electronic circuits and systems, and for Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and silicon solutions. A diverse worldwide community representing more than 1,500 organizations attends each year, from system designers and architects, logic and circuit designers, validation engineers, CAD managers, senior managers and executives to researchers and academicians from leading universities. Close to 60 technical sessions selected by a committee of electronic design experts offer information on recent developments and trends, management practices and new products, methodologies and technologies. A highlight is its Exhibition and Suite area with approximately 250 of the leading and emerging EDA, silicon and IP providers. The conference is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM/SIGDA), the Circuits and Systems Society and Council on Electronic Design Automation of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE/CASS/CEDA) and the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDA Consortium). More details are available at: www.dac.com.