Design Automation Conference

Annual technology conference

DAC, Design Automation Conference

Status| Active
Frequency| Annual
Years active| 61
Founded| May 6, 1964; 61 years ago (1964-05-06) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Founder| Pasquale (Pat) Pistilli
Most recent| DAC2024
Next event| DAC2025
Participants| 6000
Area| Electronic Design Automation
Sponsors| ACM Special Interest Group on Design Automation and IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation
Website| Design Automation Conference

The Design Automation Conference (DAC - The chips to systems conference) is an annual event that combines a technical conference with a trade show. It focuses on semiconductor and electronic system design, covering topics such as electronic design automation (EDA),  artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and AI-driven algorithms for hardware design, system on chip (SoC) architecture, low-power electronics, design for manufacturability (DFM), hardware security,  physical design, IP cores, chiplets, and embedded systems.[1]

## Program

[edit]

In 2024 DAC received 1545 research paper submissions. A technical program committee of 266 domain experts performed a double-blind review, selecting 337 papers (22%) for publication in the proceedings.[2]

DAC also includes an Engineering Track for industry professionals and technical managers. This track addresses front-end design, back-end design, IP, and embedded systems and software. Submissions to the Engineering Track undergo a separate peer-review process conducted by a dedicated committee.[3]

The trade show features approximately 100  companies in the field of design automation such as Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys, Siemens EDA and Ansys.

The DAC Young Fellows Program[4] at DAC supports graduate students and early-career researchers in the field. The program provides approximately 150 participants with mentorship, travel grants, networking opportunities, and access to conference sessions, fostering their professional growth.

The Ph.D. Forum[5] at DAC is a poster session for Ph.D. students to present and discuss their dissertation research with the EDA community.

HACK@DAC is a hardware security challenge contest for finding and exploiting security-critical vulnerabilities in hardware and firmware.

DAC is organized by hundreds of volunteer committee members from industry and academia. The conference is sponsored by two professional societies:[6]

* ACM-SIGDA (Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on Design Automation) and
* IEEE-CEDA (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation), in technical cooperation with IEEE-SSCS (IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society).

The conference is usually held in June.

## Origins

[edit]

DAC is the oldest and largest conference in EDA, starting in 1964.[7] It grew out of the SHARE ("Society to Help Avoid Redundant Effort") design automation workshop. Its originators Marie Pistilli and Pasquale (Pat) Pistilli were honored by the EDA community. Pat received the highest honor in EDA industry, the Phil Kaufman Award, for this effort, and Marie was honored by having an award established in her name, the Marie Pistilli Award.[8]

Marie and Pat Pistilli at DAC in 2000

Up until the mid-'70s, DAC had sessions on all types of design automation, including mechanical and architectural. After that, for all intents and purposes, the focus shifted to electronic design.[9] Currently, the topics at DAC also include embedded systems, autonomous systems, Artificial Intelligence hardware, hardware security, and Intellectual Property.

Also until the mid-'70s, DAC was strictly a technical conference. Then a few companies started to request space to show their products, and within a few years, the trade show portion of DAC became the main focus of the event. The first commercial DAC was held in June 1984. As a rough metric of the importance of the trade show portion, about 6,300 people attended DAC in 2018, whereas ICCAD, at least as strong technically but with no trade show, drew perhaps a tenth as many attendees.

## Recent history

[edit]

The table below shows the edition, year, location, and the general chair of recent DAC events.[10]

Key  †  | Denotes future event

|

Edition | Year | Location | Conference center | General chair

|
|
|
|

26th | 1989 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Las Vegas Convention Center | Don Thomas
27th | 1990 | Orlando, Florida | Orange County Convention Center | Richard Smith
28th | 1991 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | A. Richard Newton
29th | 1992 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Daniel Schweikert
30th | 1993 | Dallas, Texas | Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center | Alfred Dunlop
31st | 1994 | San Diego, California | San Diego Convention Center | Michael Lorenzetti
32nd | 1995 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Bryan Preas
33rd | 1996 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Las Vegas Convention Center | Thomas Pennino
34th | 1997 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Ellen Yoffa
35th | 1998 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Basant Chawla
36th | 1999 | New Orleans, Louisiana | New Orleans Morial Convention Center | Mary Jane Irwin
37th | 2000 | Los Angeles, California | Los Angeles Convention Center | Giovanni De Micheli
38th | 2001 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Las Vegas Convention Center | Jan M. Rabaey
39th | 2002 | New Orleans, Louisiana | New Orleans Morial Convention Center | Bryan Ackland
40th | 2003 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Ian Getreu
41st | 2004 | San Diego, California | San Diego Convention Center | Sharad Malik
42nd | 2005 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | William H. Joyner Jr.
43rd | 2006 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Ellen Sentovich
44th | 2007 | San Diego, California | San Diego Convention Center | Steven Levitan
45th | 2008 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Limor Fix
46th | 2009 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Andrew Kahng
47th | 2010 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Sachin Sapatnekar
48th | 2011 | San Diego, California | San Diego Convention Center | Leon Stok
49th[11] | 2012 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Patrick Groeneveld
50th | 2013 | Austin, Texas | Austin Convention Center | Yervant Zorian
51st | 2014 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Soha Hassoun
52nd | 2015 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Anne Cirkel
53rd | 2016 | Austin, Texas | Austin Convention Center | Chuck Alpert
54th | 2017 | Austin, Texas | Austin Convention Center | Mac McNamara
55th | 2018 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Xiaobo Sharon Hu
56th | 2019 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Las Vegas Convention Center | Rob Aitken
57th | 2020 | Virtual due to COVID-19 | — | Zhuo Li
58th[12] | 2021 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Harry Foster
59th[13] | 2022 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Rob Oshana
60th[14] | 2023 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Jörg Henkel
61st[15] | 2024 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Vivek De
62nd† | 2025 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center |  Helen Li
63rd† | 2026 | Long Beach, California | Long Beach Convention Center | Renu Mehra

## Gallery

[edit]

* The cover of the 25th DAC Proceedings (1988).[16]

* The Executive Committee of the 37th DAC in June 2000. Sitting in the bottom row are Lee Wood, David Blaauw, Mary Jane Irwin, Giovanni De Micheli, Jan Rabaey, Ellen Yoffa, Randal Bryant, and Marie R. Pistilli.

* Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak delivered the keynote address at the 48th DAC in 2011.

* 25 past DAC chairs at the 50th DAC celebration in Austin, June 6th, 2013.

* The 59th DAC was at Moscone West, San Francisco, July 2022.

* The poster session of the DAC Young Fellows at the 61st DAC in Moscone West, July 2024.

* Jim Keller delivering his keynote at the 61st DAC in 2024.

## See also

[edit]

* Marie Pistilli Award, an award for women in Electronic Design Automation issued at DAC
* Phil Kaufman Award, an award for key contributors in the field of EDA issued at DAC
* EDA Software Category
* International Conference on Computer-Aided Design
* Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference
* Design Automation and Test in Europe
* Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Frank Schirrmeister (July 17, 2023). "DAC 2023: Megatrends And The Road Ahead For Design Automation". SemiEngineering. Retrieved 2025-03-13.
2. ^ Vivek De, ed. (2024). Proceedings of the 61st ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC). Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3649329. ISBN 979-8-4007-0601-1. Retrieved 2025-03-13.
3. ^ "A Detailed Look at the DAC Engineering Track with Ambar Sarkar". SemiWiki. 2024. Retrieved 2025-03-13.
4. ^ "DAC Young Fellows Program". Design Automation Conference. Retrieved 2025-03-13.
5. ^ "PhD Forum at DAC". Design Automation Conference. Retrieved 2025-04-30.
6. ^ "DAC Sponsors | Design Automation Conference". www.dac.com.
7. ^ P.O. Pistilli, ed. (1964). Proceedings of the SHARE design automation workshop. Association for Computing Machinery. OCLC 809795363.
8. ^ "Women in Electronic Design | Design Automation Conference". dac.com. Archived from the original on 2016-11-26. Retrieved 2016-02-29.
9. ^ Newton, A. Richard (1988). 25 years of electronic design automation: a compendium of papers from the Design Automation Conference. Association for Computing Machinery. ISBN 978-0-89791-267-9. OCLC 56581424.
10. ^ "DAC Conference Archive". Design Automation Conference. Retrieved 2025-03-13.
11. ^ Patrick Groeneveld, ed. (2012). Proceedings of the 49th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC). Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/2228360. ISBN 978-1-4503-1199-1.
12. ^ Harry Foster, ed. (2021). Proceedings of the 60st ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC). IEEE. doi:10.1109/DAC18074.2021. ISBN 978-1-6654-3274-0.
13. ^ Rob Oshana, ed. (2022). Proceedings of the 59th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC). Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3489517. ISBN 978-1-4503-9142-9.
14. ^ Jorg Henkel, ed. (2023). Proceedings of the 60st ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC). IEEE. doi:10.1109/DAC56929.2023. ISBN 979-8-3503-2348-1.
15. ^ Vivek De, ed. (2024). Proceedings of the 61st ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC). Association for Computing Machinery. doi:10.1145/3649329. ISBN 979-8-4007-0601-1.
16. ^ A. Richard Newton, ed. (1988). Proceedings of the 25th ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC). Association for Computing Machinery. ISBN 978-0-8186-8864-5.

## External links

[edit]

* Design Automation Conference website
* dblp: Design Automation Conference

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