41st Design Automation Conference Sessions Feature Hottest Topics in EDA

"This year's program promises to be both informative and provocative, with some of the most interesting dialogue around what will replace the ASIC approach: structured ASICs, traditional FPGAs or perhaps yet another implementation fabric," said Sharad Malik, 41st DAC general chair. "Also, with the amount of confidential information carried on handheld consumer devices approaching that of a PC, and embedded systems' increasing use in military applications, we believe security for embedded systems is ripe for discussion."

Increased activity in the embedded arena is creating pressure for innovative design techniques to address power consumption. New approaches to optimize battery-based performance will be presented for both processors and memories across the gamut of embedded applications.

The three hot topics -- implementation fabrics, embedded security and power optimization -- will be the focus of a number of workshops, tutorials and panels.

  Implementation fabrics
      * What Happened to ASICs? Go (Recon)figure -- Tuesday, June 8,
        4:30 - 6:30 p.m., Room 6B
      * ASIC, COT or FPGA:  Which Should Your Next Chip Be? -- Thursday,
        June 10, 10:15 - 11 a.m., DAC Pavilion, Exhibit Floor

  Embedded security
      * Security as a New Dimension in Embedded Systems Design -- Thursday,
        June 10, 2 - 4 p.m., Room 6A

  Power optimization
      * Low-power Design Methodologies and Tools -- Monday, June 7,
        2 - 5 p.m., Room 11
      * Power Modeling and Optimization for Embedded Systems -- Tuesday,
        June 8, 2 - 4 p.m., Room 6C

  Keynotes
      * Pat Gelsinger, Chief Technology Officer, Senior Vice President,
        Intel Corp.
        GigaScale Integration for Teraops Performance -- Challenges,
        Opportunities, and New Frontiers -- Tuesday, June 8, 8:30 - 10:00,
        Ballroom 20ABC
        Mr. Gelsinger will discuss the paradigm shifts to come on the road
        to teraops performance, and how future design automation tools must
        adapt for the industry to achieve gigascale integration.

      * Walden C. Rhines, Chairman EDA Consortium, Chairman and CEO,
        Mentor Graphics
        EDA Industry Growth -- Are There Enough New Problems to Solve? --
        Thursday, June 10, 12:45 - 1:45, Ballroom 20ABC
        Dr. Rhines will address the problems most likely to be the drivers
        of future industry growth, as well as some less likely
        possibilities.

Other topics expected to generate considerable interest at DAC include manufacturing-aware physical design and performance optimization of dynamically reconfigurable devices. DAC will be held June 7 - 11 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, Calif.

About DAC

DAC is the premier forum for the electronic design industry to exchange information on products, methodologies, and processes. Attended by more than 10,000 developers, designers, researchers, managers and engineers from leading electronics companies and universities around the world, DAC includes more than 150 exhibitors and offers a robust technical program covering the electronics industry's hottest trends.

The conference is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery/Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM/SIGDA), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Circuits and Systems Society (IEEE/CASS) and the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDA Consortium). For more information, including registration, visit the DAC Web site at http://www.dac.com/, or contact DAC management at 800-321-4573.

CONTACT: Nate James of Fleishman-Hillard, +1-503-221-2378,
jamesn@fleishman.com, for the 41st Design Automation Conference

Web site: http://www.dac.com/