Proceedings of the 40th annual Design Automation Conference

DAC brings together designers, EDA developers, analysts, marketers, consultants, managers, executives, professors and students. This makes it a great place to meet others who are working on the same and related problems, to learn about new developments, to meet people who use what you develop or develop what you use, to learn about needs and trends and to renew old friendships. It is an exciting and fast-paced week where the benefits are limited only by your desire, and time.The technical program presents the latest developments in EDA tools and design methodologies. Power management is the major emphasis this year - in papers, a panel, Monday's tutorial and the hands-on tutorial. Other hot topics are: deep submicron issues, embedded system design and verification and the design of complex, high-performance ASICs. New this year are 5 papers covering highlights from ISSCC.The keynote speakers are Sir Robin Saxby, Chairman of ARM Holdings plc, who will look to the future, and Professor Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, who will look back over DAC's 40 years. DAC fullconference registrants will receive a DVD containing 40 years of DAC proceedings.Over 190 companies will be at DAC this year, 25 of them making their debut. Many of these companies will also have demo suites. The DAC Pavilion on the exhibit floor will provide panel sessions, interviews and live video feed of some of the technical program. It will also provide a preview of the new combined booth-suite layout that will debut at DAC 2004. We will continue the coffee carts introduced last year. New this year on the floor is a Micro-Brew party from 4 to 6 pm on Monday, hosted by the exhibitors and icecream carts on Tuesday.This year, in cooperation with the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA), DAC introduces for managers and executives a Management Focus program on Tuesday. It consists of the keynote (Sir Robin Saxby), two sessions on the economics of design and the EDA Business Forum ™ Lunch, organized by AKI PR.This year's Technical Program received a record number of 628 paper submissions. The 61 members of the technical program committee, co-chaired by Luciano Lavagno and Limor Fix and helped by over 600 reviewers, had to make very difficult decisions. The final program consists of 152 papers in 38 sessions, 9 special sessions and 8 panels and it promises to be one of the best programs ever.