Places

Week of June 1-7, 2004


DAC 2004

DAC 2004 is here and now. If you're reading this in San Diego, read on. You'll find some recommendations included for places to see in and around the city. If you're not in San Diego, you're missing a lot of breaking news. So go check out People.


No Accidental Tourists Here

Here are 8 responses from 9 people offering advice on what to do and see when you’re not in the San Diego Convention Center attending DAC 2004:

Debbie Forward, Cayenne Communications - "I happen to be a local down here, so I'd say the place to be is at Balboa Park! The zoo and most of our museums are located here."

Liam Goudge, ARM - "Santana's burritos on Morena by Sea World. Hand-made tortillas. Potatoes instead of rice. Don't be scared of the gun shop next door. Balboa Park, site of the 1935 California-Pacific International Exposition. 15 museums. Twilight movies in the park without the need for REI thermal clothing. Harbor Island by the airport. Go sailing on a former Americas Cup yacht."

Gary Smith, Dataquest - "Pier 29 (if they'll let me on the Naval Base), my old home."

Gloria Nichols, LaunchM PR - "I plan to go on walks on the beach with my sister who lives in the area, and will find out how much the vegetation on her ranch has grown back since the Santa Ana-fueled fire struck there a few years ago."

Brett Cline, Forte Design - "While in San Diego, I plan on going to Croce's, a restaurant in the gas lamp district, that is named after Jim Croce and run by his wife. After dinner, I will go to this cool place around the corner called Grapes."

Abbie Kendall, Armstrong Kendall PR - "I plan to see the insides of multiple taxi cabs. What can I say - I have really low expectations while working at trade shows!"

Ed Lee, Lee PR - The La Jolla Playhouse is staging "Continental Divide," by Jack Edgar, two-play cycle on Democrats and Republicans. Got good reviews back East. Here's the write-up:

"In David Edgar's acclaimed two-play cycle, past becomes prologue as both the Democratic and the Republican camps prepare for a West Coast gubernatorial election. Each play is a complete theatrical event unto itself and together they bring a timely and fascinating perspective to contemporary American politics"

Ray Bingham and Mike Fister in tandem, Cadence Design Systems - "Like most of us at DAC this year, we will be so busy with customers that we don't expect to be doing any sightseeing. We do, however, expect to see the DAC sights, including a strong focus on yield and design for manufacturing, and how we plan to address the rising cost of design for our customers. We've got a lot of work to do in San Diego - which makes us anything BUT accidental tourists."


Five on Tuesday, four of which include lunch:

CEO Panel from 10:30 AM to Noon on Tuesday, newly named Cadence CEO Mike Fister will join Wally Rhines, CEO of Mentor Graphics, and Aart de Geus, CEO of Synopsys, on a panel discussing the current state of affairs in the EDA industry. The title is "EDA: This is Serious Business," the three CEO panelists are promising to discuss how the EDA industry has come of age, their visions for the industry's future, and its prospects for growth. The panel will field questions from a group of six well-known industry watchers, ensuring a forum for provocative discussion. Guess we'll all have to go to see if the "provocative" part proves accurate.

The 2nd Annual ESL Technology Symposium - Come have lunch and hear the panel discussion on Tuesday, June 8th. The topic: "Electronic System-Level: Fueling the Future of Sub-Micron Silicon A Language and Methodology Roadmap."

Panelists will include Dataquest’s Gary Smith, Synopysys’ Rindert Schutten, Mentor Graphics’ Serge Leef, ARM’s Tim Holden, Verisity Design’s Steve Glaser, and Summit Design’s Guy Moshe. Peggy Aycinena will be moderating. Organizers say the panel will discuss the challenges ahead for SoC and embedded systems design, and the role of ESL in this complex landscape. Topics will include the roadmap set out by various EDA companies to address the challenges through new languages, SystemVerilog and SystemC, and verification concepts including assertion and architecture analysis. (www.summit-design.com)

The SPIRIT Consortium Technology Announcement and Panel Discussion will takes place on Tuesday, June 8th, also over lunch. The panel will address "Increasing efficiency in SoC design integration, configuration and tooling" and will be moderated by SemiView’s Jim Lipman. Consortium members will serve as panel participants. Consortium Vice President Chris Lennard of ARM Ltd. will be making a presentation as well. Lunch is included. (www.spiritconsortium.com)

Meanwhile, remember that "SPIRIT stands for Structure for Packaging, Integrating and Re-using IP within Tool-flows. Announced last year at DAC 2003, the SPIRIT Consortium is a standardization body formed to increase efficiency of SoC integration by defining new standards in tooling in EDA environments. The SPIRIT standards will be built upon and extend the capabilities of existing tool flows and IP packaging techniques and standards. The major standardization focus is to: 1) enable the use of IP and tools from multiple sources irrespective of their original packaging by means of meta data and, 2) allow mechanisms for expanding and integrating the IP as well as slotting in of tools from multiple vendors into a standard framework."

The EDA Business Forum at DAC - This 8th annual event and will also be taking place on Tuesday, June 8th, at noon, also in the Convention Center. D.A. Davidson & Co.’s Michael Black will be your host and, along with your lunch, you can enjoy a presentation by EETimes’ Brian Fuller, and a panel discussion including Synopsys’ Aart de Geus, D.A.Davidson’s Bill Frerichs, and PDF Solutions’ John Kibarian. (www.edac.org)

Power-efficient Design Panel - EE Times Ron Wilson will moderate an open-microphone and panel discussion addressing the need for power-efficient design in feature-rich portable systems. Organizers say the conversation will look at how designers can optimize system-wide power use to reduce power consumption and maximize battery life. Panelists include: Mike Muller from ARM, Dhrumil Gandhi from Artisan. Antun Domic from Synopsys, John Yue from TSMC North America, and Peter Henry from National Semiconductor.


There are still Accellera events (with food) left to attend:

Accellera Events at DAC 2004 - Accellera will be hosting a number of events at DAC. There will be a breakfast on Monday to discuss Accellera OpenKit Initiative: "How can OK help to make custom design flows as open as digital design flows?" There will be a luncheon on Tuesday to present news about SystemVerilog. There will be a breakfast and panel discussion on Wednesday sponsored by Aldec, Mentor Graphics and Novas: "What is the best way to leverage SystemVerilog 3.1a?" That one’s destined to be fun as I’m the moderator. Then finally, the Accellera's Membership meeting with standards updates and Technical Excellence Award presentation takes place on Wednesday immediately after the breakfast panel. Probably there will be food served there as well. Please plan to attend some or all of what Accellera has in store for you. (www.accellera.org)