These and other subjects are covered in the most recent issue of Assembling the Future, the free newsletter you can subscribe to and read at www.gabeoneda.com.

It is likely the last revue you will read about DAC until next year and it comes together with other six articles about the conference. The issue covers the economics of 20 nm, software verification, 3D, standards, and other issues about DAC, including whether or not the Denali party should be retired. As I wrote in my article “Sanjay (Denali version) would have had the Goldrush at the party”.

The other articles in the issue are from Breker Verification talking about their experience as an exhibitor that “breaks systems”. Verification and what it is like to exhibit across the aisle from one of the “big 3″ is the subject of the article from EVE.

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Zuken Innovation World is Zuken Americas annual conference and the company is seeking papers on this year’s theme of INNOVATION. Sharing first-hand knowledge and experience is a cornerstone of this conference and what makes it so successful. Amy Clements, conference manager told me that they are interested in papers that describe a breakthrough or a solution to a particular design challenge. The Zuken Innovation World 2012 conference will be held October 15-17 in Newport Beach, CA, a location that is hard to resist.

Zuken Innovation World conferences are premier annual events for the Zuken community. Held in locations around the globe, the conferences bring together customers and industry professionals in an environment that encourages networking, learning, and sharing of innovative ideas.

Providing an open environment for networking and partnership development is a key element of Zuken Innovation World. Partnerships with co-workers, other customers, industry professionals, and Zuken staff provide lasting benefits. People working together to solve common problems achieve greater success.

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Steve Leibson posted an article in the EDA360 Insider that reports on a panel at DAC chaired by Wally Rhines. The panel on ESL touched on the cost of IC development and Wally pointed out that the cost of software development is much higher than the one for hardware. In fact, software development costs are rising.

This should not come as a surprise to careful observers of the industry.

What is happening is that IC manufacturing costs are increasing significantly but hardware development costs have not been rising very much. Wally stated that the increase is around 10%. Re-use is the principal reason for the stability of hardware development cost. The use of standard cores, like those from ARM is so widespread that when combined with standard busses and functional blocks, most IC’s look more like standard computers than ASIC.

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