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The Design Automation Conference, or DAC, is an annual event, a combination of a technical conference and a trade show, both specializing in electronic design automation (EDA).
DAC is the oldest and largest conference in EDA, started in 1964. 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[1] and Marie was honored by having an award established in her name, the Marie Pistilli Award.[2]
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, only topics concerned with electronic design have been included. 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.
Other similar conferences are the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, or ICCAD (technical only, no trade show), Design Automation and Test in Europe (DATE), Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASPDAC), and International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED).
Over the past few years the conference location has been alternating among San Diego, Austin and San Francisco. The conference is usually held in June.
DAC is sponsored by two professional societies: 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).[3] DAC is organized by hundreds of volunteer committee members from EDA companies and academia.[4]
Recent history
The table below shows the edition, year, location and the general chair of recent DAC events.
[5]
[6]
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 |
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 |
2021 |
San Francisco, California |
Moscone Center |
Harry Foster
|
59th |
2022 |
San Francisco, California |
Moscone Center |
Rob Oshana
|