There are lots of clever ways to tell you why it’s worth your while to attend EDPS in Monterey on April 17th and 18th. It’s less noisy than DAC, less vendor-specific than CDNLive, SNUG or U2U; less crowded than ISSCC; has fewer presentations than DVCon; and boasts no co-located events to confuse your schedule like at ISQED. But that doesn’t tell you why EDPS is worthwhile. It’s the list of speakers and the setting that should convince you to carve out some time on that Thursday and Friday to run down to Monterey – a scenic hour’s drive from Silicon Valley – to attend the 21st annual Electronic Design Process Symposium.

On Thursday, Wally Rhines is giving the keynote after dinner; during the day, Gary Smith’s moderating a session on design flow challenges that includes Frank Schirrmeister, John Swan, Gene Matter, Jim Kenney, and Naresh Sehgal; Sehgal’s leading a session on pre-silicon software development platforms that includes Camille Kokozaki, Shantanu Ganguly, Kumaraswamy Namburu, Schirrmeister, and Vicki Mitchell; Herb Reiter’s moderating a session on FinFETs, 3D-ICs, and FDSOI, that includes Jamil Kawa and Paul McLellan; and the kick-off keynote on Thursday morning will be given by Intel’s Chris Lawless talking about pre-silicon platforms for software development.

On Friday, Dan Nenni’s leading a whole day on IP that includes Martin Lund, Patrick Soheili, Warren Savage, Kurt Shuler, Lluis Paris, Carey Robertson, and Bernard Murphy. Finally, Aparna Dey is General Chair for EDPS. All together, that’s 24 people and a robust ecosystem of knowledge and experience comprising this year’s EDPS program.

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