Accellera has just announced that Lu Dai, Senior Director of Engineering at Qualcomm, is the new chair of the organization.
Although Intel’s Shishpal Rawat, recently retired from Intel, is a hard act to follow as Accellera Chair given his long, productive years leading the organization, if anyone can do it Lu Dai can. He’s enthusiastic, energetic, optimistic, and an engineer – and not necessarily in that order.
Before talking about Accellera in our phone call this week, Dai spoke about DVCon, anchor tenant of Accellera’s outreach to design and verification engineers around the world. This next week, the Silicon Valley version will unfold in San Jose, with DVCon India happening in September, DVCon Europe in October, and the first-ever DVCon China in April.
On a phone call last week with the DVCon 2016 General Chair, Synopsys’ Yatin Trivedi, and 2016 Technical Program Chair, eInfochips’ Ambar Sarkar, I was again reminded of two unalienable truths: DVCon is a labor of love for those who have been involved for so long, and without these people the conference simply would not exist.
DVCon is the granddaddy of all design and verification conferences. It’s been housed annually in Silicon Valley since before the beginning of time, this year from February 29 to March 3 at the DoubleTree Hotel. As inevitable a part of the yearly conference cycle as DVCon may be, however, always remember that nothing is forever.
Learning and networking opportunities like DVCon only exist because a group of over-achieving volunteers continue to infuse the event with their special brand of energy and credibility. The conference goes on and on, because of the selfless dedication of the folks who carve time out of their busy professional lives to lead it — to solicit, vet and assemble the technical program, and to solicit, vet and assemble the exhibition hall (a unique ‘science fair’ sort of a deal that opens every afternoon after the technical sessions have wrapped up for the day).
But these kinds of volunteers do not always step forward and even when they do contribute at this level, their efforts often go unnoticed. Hence, when you think of DVCon, remember to be grateful to the team that brings it to you. Nothing lasts forever, even if DVCon seems likes it could. End of sermon.
What if I were to tell you that I attended a conference where people were really excited to be there, where the exhibit hall was filled with a crush of people making their way from booth to booth, talking with exhibitors and exchanging business cards madly. A conference where the South of the exhibit hall was dominated by Synopsys, the East by Cadence, and the West by Mentor, and where at the happiest hour, libations and snacks flowed freely in a sub-set of the booths and the whole exhibit hall became even more animated.
What if I told you the technical portion of the conference included a variety of content — touching at times on autos, wearables, the IoT, IP, standards, and verification — excellent panel discussions, well-attended poster sessions, detailed tutorials, and a keynote from the CEO of the largest company in the industry delivered to a packed, SRO ballroom full of designers, engineers, and engineering managers.
Finally, what if I told you the highly capable staff of MP Associates was running the whole thing with their usual aplomb, attending to details as diverse as registration, sound systems, lunch tickets, speaker logistics, and awards presentations.
DVCon is coming to San Jose from March 2nd to 5th. If you have any doubts about going, you should spend 12 minutes watching my interview [YouTube link below] with DVCon General Chair Yatin Trivedi of Synopsys and Technical Program Committee Chair Ambar Sarkar of Paradigm Works. The sheer joy these two gentlemen and their team are bringing to the work of organizing the upcoming event is totally evident there. And as they explain so well, these days that joy is not just limited to DVCon San Jose.
Now Yatin and Ambar, and many like-minded volunteers, are spreading the good works of the conference around the globe with DVCon Europe and DVCon India, newly launched companion events that debuted in 2014. Both were sell-out successes, according to Ambar and Yatin, and will now provide two additional opportunities each year for design and verification engineers to network, learn, and contribute. An impressive outcome of the efforts of so many, as noted enthusiastically in the interview.
Oh my gosh: If you arrived at DVCon 2014 at 10:45 am on Tuesday this week, you’d have wondered if you’d wandered into the wrong conference. What happened to sedate, dignified DVCon? Standing at the registration desk on the first floor of the DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose, the volume of noise and conviviality sweeping down the staircase from the upstairs mezzanine was unprecedented. What was going on up there? The DVCon morning poster session, awash in company reps and their ideas, and engineers anxious to engage with both.
When I got to the top of the staircase, I took a moment before plunging into the crowd, amazed at the vitality and the numbers of people hobnobbing among the posters. It wasn’t surprising to learn later in the day from DVCon General Chair Stan Krolikoski that over a thousand people – attendees and exhibitors combined – were at this year’s conference. Clearly, DVCon is enjoying an extraordinary renaissance, so much so that DVCon Europe will be debuting this October in Munich, with DVCon India, DVCon China, and DVCon Japan now in the planning stages. Like I said, omg.
