Need Input on the Design Automation Conference

Patrick Groeneveld is the CTO at Magma and the Vice Chair in 2011 of the Design Automation Conference. He also chairs the   DAC Strategy Committee for 2011 and he has asked me to take part, representing user and startup concerns in the planning process.

My objective is to foster an exploration of some of the critical issues facing the industry and to suggest some possible roles that DAC can play in addressing them.

I believe that conferences and other face to face meetings are essential for establishing the trust necessary for key stakeholders and thought leaders to collaborate on common challenges.

I think that the EDA landscape has changed significantly in the last five to ten years and DAC has yet to adjust:

1. The rise of global teams as the default vehicle for product design and development. Designs never sleep: continuous configuration management and design dashboards are replacing face to face status meetings and Power Point decks. See also:
   • “Beat The Clock“
   • “Three Roundtables on Global Teams at DAC“
2. Customers are increasingly relying on outside service firms for significant aspects of the product development process. EDA services revenue may be as large as EDA software revenue.
3. Clearly imminent is a transition to cloud computing and SaaS models, whether at larger customers on virtualized datacenters or at smaller firms relying on third party cloud computing suppliers.

I welcome your suggestions for how DAC can assist small firms and working engineers. I am specifically interested in your opinion on:

1. What are the significant problems or emerging issues that DAC should foster conversation and collaboration to address.
2. What can DAC do to better serve the smaller innovative firms.
3. What can DAC do to enable innovative engineers to compare notes on current challenges. How do we recapture the roots of the conference as a community of practice where engineers share lessons learned around real design and product development challenges.

Please use https://www.skmurphy.com/contact to reach me.

Related posts:

• “Opportunities for Serious Conversation at DAC 2009“
• “Impressions from DAC 2009 Panel: Tweet, Blog, or News”
• “DAC 2009 Blog Coverage Roundup“
• “EDA Chiefs Hazard No Guesses on 2010 Market“
• “Getting Back to Growing the Pie in EDA“
• “Growing the Pie in EDA: As Revenue Shrinks So Does Analyst Interest”
• “Growing the Pie in EDA: Add Matlab“
• “DAC 2010 Blog Roundup“

See also comments left on an earlier version of this post at http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/other/4208859/Seeking-input-on-DAC-s-strategy