EDA’s momentum reflected in DAC’s record breaking year

Times are good in EDA. 2014 was a record revenue year for our industry, according to an April 13 EDAC announcement. Several technology areas (IC physical design and semiconductor IP) and geographies (the Americas and Asia-Pacific) experienced double digit growth in Q4. The number of people working in EDA is on the rise, too: a total of 31,735 employees at companies EDAC tracks in Q4 2014, compared to 29,880 employees a year earlier. This rising tide is lifting all boats — including #52DAC, which I invite you to register for today if you haven’t already.

#DAC52 keynotes headline a great program.

Those of us on the executive committee have seen the effects of the industry momentum as we’ve put together our program, now complete. There is a great lineup across the board but I’d like to invite you to take just a moment and browse through a few abstracts for the designer and IP tracks. Both tracks received a record number of submissions this year and I can assure you that the presentations will be compelling, starting with the designer keynote, which takes place Monday. I’m referring to Brian Otis from Google [x] who will be speaking about the smart contact lens project. It’s a first to feature Google on the main stage and the timing feels right to welcome them to DAC. Who better than a company so famous for culling through countless resumes to hire people with high “general cognitive ability” to kick off the designer content at DAC in a year where we sorted through more submissions than ever to produce such stellar designer and IP tracks?

The robust health of EDA was felt elsewhere in our conference planning efforts, too. There were also record numbers of submissions of research papers and tutorials, and several good ideas for collocated events. More than a thousand people signed up for free “I Love DAC” registration just in the first week it was available and several tens of thousands of people have seen my weekly conference planning blog posts either on the DAC site or graciously republished by our friend Ed Sperling over at Semiconductor Engineering.

Indeed if DAC were a publicly traded stock, it would be tempting to urge you to buy based on all these indicators. Since it’s not, I’ll have to be content to encourage you to register now. (The advance registration discount ends May 19.)

As general chair, of course I strongly encourage you to sign up for the full conference pass, which gives you access to everything. However there are other more targeted – options, including the $95 designer special, which gets you into the designer and IP tracks, also the keynotes, exhibits and networking receptions.

I’ve been singing the praises of DAC for months now though we’re at the point in the calendar where I could use your help if you are in the Silicon Valley, where I know many EDACafe readers are based. If you’re interested in helping us get the word out about DAC, please drop me a note or contact DAC’s publicity chair, Michelle Clancy. Don’t worry, Michelle won’t be having you hold a sandwich board sign on the side of Highway 101! Instead, think of hosting “DAC and donuts” at your workplace.

The numbers are up in EDA and this is translating into a great #52DAC, which we’ve done our best to make not only compelling but fun too. This year, the DAC conference app includes a game that you can play to win an Apple Watch. For more on that, see my week 45 post over on my official DAC blog.

And I’ll see you in San Francisco.

Tags: DAC, eda

Category: DAC

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