Plenty of intriguing email lands in my inbox about webinars, webcasts and other sundry industry events. While all are tempting, there are not enough days in a month to explore them all. Most are passed by and forgotten about.
That changed several months ago with an interesting email from VLSI System Design, a company based in Bangalore, India, that specializes in training students in chip design. During discussions with the founders, I learned about a virtual conference they were producing in October. This caught my attention and held it, so much so that the ESD Alliance, the SEMI Foundation and SEMI are collaborating with its organizers. 
The event I’m referring to is VSDOpen2020, a free, online event Saturday, October 10. It starts at 8am IST (India Standard Time) or 7:30pm PDT and runs until 2pm IST or 1:30am PDT. While that may be inconvenient for those of us in the US, sessions will be recorded and available a week later at a small fee.
VSDOpen2020’s theme is the practical aspects of designing analog IP using freely available resources. Considered the pioneer of the semiconductor industry’s online conferences, VSDOpen2020 is a one-day virtual online event, featuring three keynote speakers:
- Jan Rabaey, the Donald O. Pederson Distinguished Professorship at the University of California at Berkeley, will offer a look at “Computation in the Post-Moore Era: Reflecting on the Role of Open Source”
- Naveed Sherwani, chairman, CEO and president of SiFive, will describe “RISC-V and open source hardware –– A golden opportunity for the India semiconductor industry”
- Michael Wishart, Co-Founder and CEO of Efabless, will address “Applying Community Models to ICs: Why and How”
