Ditchin' DAC
Analysis from an Absentee

From before my kids were born until after they were grown and graduated, it was a June ritual. Twenty-one times in all, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Design Automation Conference (DAC), perhaps the most misunderstood massing of technology professionals our industry has to offer. DAC is “Burning Man” for the left brain – a mysteriously gravitational gathering that inexplicably pulls people from around the globe to one central location in non-consensual celebration of the unclear.

This year, the 42nd annual DAC was held in Anaheim California. It featured 240 exhibitors, 60 of whom were showing for the first time. Over 10,000 attendees were expected to attend the tradeshow, 57 technical sessions, 13 tutorials, four workshops, and 18 Pavilion presentations. As in every recent year, the 42nd DAC represented an industry at a crossroads, struggling to regain its identity. Would a new methodology, technology, or theme emerge that would re-vitalize the industry and resuscitate EDA from years of flatline financial performance? DAC promised to reveal the secrets.

I ditched.

Nobody can say for sure when DAC stopped making sense. In the early days, semiconductor companies were both the primary producers and the primary consumers of design automation software. Chip design teams wrote their own stuff and needed a place to get together to compare notes and share ideas. University students wanted jobs with semiconductor companies and needed a place to get published in order to prove that they were working on current, relevant technology instead of simply driving Mr. Kirchoff for another lap around the circuit board. University professors wanted tenure and needed papers to add their names to, adding to the perceived value of their academic stock before the faculty review board. [more]

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