DAC 2012: Thermocouple Thursday in San Francisco

Why call this Thermocouple Thursday?

For two reasons. First, because the rest of the days at DAC 2012 in San Francisco got alliterated:

* Super Sunday
* Marvelous Monday
* Terrible Tuesday
* Wicked Wednesday

And second, because “a thermocouple is a device consisting of two dissimilar metals joined at two points, the potential difference between the two junctions being a measure of their difference in temperature.”*

And if that doesn’t describe Thursday, June 7th, at DAC 2012 what does?

After all, nobody really sticks around for Thursday at DAC unless a) they’re presenting on that day, b) they’ve got a client and/or student presenting on that day, or c) they’re staying through the weekend to vacation in The City.

But people not sticking around for Thursday at DAC is just wrong, because Thursday is the thermocouple day that connects the  two main parts of life in EDA.

The first part is Sunday through Wednesday at DAC which include workshops, tutorials, keynotes, the Exhibition Hall [closes Wednesday at 6:00 pm], the Pavilion Panels [wrap up at 5:15 pm on Wednesday], the Parties [the Cadence/Denali party happens on Tuesday night, click here for tickets], and most of the people …

And the second part which is everything that comes after DAC — executing on the technical knowledge you picked up at DAC and/or executing on the sales leads you picked up at DAC.

So, Thursday is a critical day. It’s always a day for concentrated learning and this year Thursday, June 7th, is no different. Your session topics include: Simulation-based verification, Analog/M-S, Verification & Test for TSVs etc., Stuff related to ultra-low power, Heterogeneous SoCs, Designing wireless sensor networks, Timing closure in nano-scale devices, Reliability in embedded systems [a topic that might be seen as encompassing just about everything else], Yield, and Packaging.

And Thursday’s also got panels: 3DICs, Embedded software, and Parallelization in software. Happily, you can attend all 3 panels if you choose, because they don’t overlap during the day.

Importantly, as well, the User Track continues on Thursday; Verification, Virtual Platforms, Clocks & Timing all being on the menu as subjects d’jour.

Finally, Thursday continues the EDAC Enterprise Licensing Conference, and an all-day Workshop on Post-silicon Debug.

Clearly Thursday’s important at DAC, and not least of all because if you want to eat a great dinner in San Francisco after [some of] the madding crowd has left town, you can save up your dough and make reservations at Boulevard, which describes itself as “one of the most popular restaurants in San Francisco and America.”

It’s within easy walking distance of Moscone Center and is a unique [read “fabulously expensive, but delicious”] way to wrap up your last night at DAC 2012. You’ll pay dearly for the experience, but you will love it nonetheless.

See you in San Francisco!

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* American Heritage Dictionary, 1983, pg. 704

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Tags: DAC 2012, Design Automation Conference

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