Design Automation Conference (DAC) wrap-up

I went up to San Francisco yesterday (Tuesday) to attend DAC. I heard it was much busier on "free" Monday. It was pretty quiet yesterday, but that's because a lot of the good activity is happening in vendor suites or in the technical sessions. That leaves little time to wander the halls. Many booths were just front-ends to the suites, where the action was happening as vendors gave demos of new tools and capabilities. People with little companies with small booths and no suites looked like they were getting pretty bored with the lack of hall traffic. There were very few flashy booths - the XJTAG girls in their short skirts were about as exciting as it got. Why don't they just let qualified people in for free every day? The more traffic, the better the show.

Synopsys and Cadence issued press releases about their efforts to create workable tools for 32 nm designs - let's hope they can really make their tools work. The show is still going on today at Moscone center.