DAC: March Update

DAC is coming up. It is already March. If you are in the EDA industry then it is basically three months away, which sounds a lot until you actually have to get everything pulled together so that your booth is ready to go on Monday June 7[SUP]th[/SUP]. Exhibit hours have been extended and now run from 10am to 7pm (only until 6pm on Wednesday). To ensure attendance that late in the day, the executive committee will be walking around the halls with rawhide whips…no wait, the evening receptions at the end of the first couple of days will be moved to the show floor. The poster sessions will also be moved to the show floor to give them more visibility. So you can read the posters while you sip a DACquiri.

Usually at DAC there turns out to be a theme, not something official but a sort of collective wisdom of the industry. My prediction for 2015 is that this is going to be the year of 10nm. Of course 10nm is not ready but the tools need to be ahead of the curve: no point in having a process ready to go and nothing to run in it. That is the semiconductor equivalent of “all revved up with no place to go.” That means that if you don’t have 10nm tools close to being shippable to early adopters and teaching customers then you are probably going to be late to market. Test chips are being designed now. IP will be needed before anyone other than the biggest, most leading edge, companies can tape out designs.

New this year is DACtv. It will be showing videos for both exhibitors and attendees. You can find it here. If you are an exhibitor and have a YouTube channel then you can be listed as an associated channel. Send a link to pr@dac.com. Videos already up on the site are Rich Nass on embedded, Daniel Bourke on the designer track, “Mac” McNamara on IP, and an interview with General Chair Anne Cirkel. Anne has also been blogging once a week here.

There is no free Monday for the exhibits, just like the last 4 years. But there will be free access through the I love DAC scheme, as there has been for those 4 years. Details nearer to the time. And if you miss the cut for I love DAC you will still be able get in for free. Email Anne Cirkel with the titles of her last three blogs and she’ll give you a free exhibit badge. I think you can thank SemiWiki blogger Daniel Payne for that last offer.

A few upcoming deadlines:

• Submissions for the Marie Pistilli Women in EDA award are due by March 6[SUP]th[/SUP]
• Submissions for the Richard Newton Young Student Fellow Program are due March 26[SUP]th[/SUP]
• Submissions for the P.O. Pistilli Undergraduate Scholarship are due March 6[SUP]th[/SUP]
• Work in Progress submissions are due March 2[SUP]nd[/SUP]. That would be today!

The DAC website, as always, is here.