We have a lot of treats for you at this year’s Design Automation Conference. Synopsys is offering “Hot Technology and Cool Solutions”, and we have a rich menu of events for you to choose from. My blog focuses on standards, so I’ll highlight standards-related events in this post. Plus, I’m spearheading our social media activities at DAC and have the schedule for “Conversation Central” here for you.

First, though, I have to do a blatant vanity thing. VOTE FOR ME! (Please.) I’m a contestant in the game to name “The Next EDA Top Blogger”. It’s all in fun, of course, and the prize is bragging rights for a day or two. So, thanks for voting for me, and I promise to bring you whirled peas.

Here is the schedule for the 30-minute sessions in “Conversation Central” (just show up, no registration):

Monday July 27, Tuesday July 28, and Wednesday July 29 (9:30 to 6pm)

9:30 – 10:00 Karen Bartleson: “Twitter for N00bs”

10:30 – 11:00 Sean Murphy: “Global Teams &Multi-Firm Collaboration”

11:30 – 12:00 Social Media Experts

Monday - Michael Brito (Intel): “10 Twitter Best Practices for Brands”

Tuesday - Ron Ploof (OC New Media): “Objectivity is Overrated: Corporate Bloggers Aren’t Journalists, & Why They Shouldn’t Even Try”

Wednesday -Tom Diederich (Lithium): “Overcoming Challenges of Launching & Managing a Corporate Blog Program”

12:30 Tweet up! / Meet the Industry Bloggers

1:30 – 2:00 Harry the ASIC Guy: “Job Search: How Social Media Can Help Job Seekers & Employers”

2:30 – 3:00 “The Changing Media Landscape”

Monday - Ron Wilson

Tuesday - John Blyler

Wednesday - Brian Fuller

3:30 – 4:00 John Cooley: “The Evolution of ESNUG & DeepChip”

4:30 – 5:00 JL Gray: “So You Want To Be a Blogger?”

5:30 – 6:00 Rick Jamison: “Competitors in Cyberspace: Why Be Friends?”

As for standards at DAC, here are at least 3 things you won’t want to miss:

Peace, Love and Interoperability, a breakfast event with the Tenzing Norgay Award, VMM, and iPDKs

Synopsys’ Standards Booth, featuring IPL (Interoperable Pcell Libraries), 1801 (UPF), and 1666 (SystemC)

IPL Lunch Workshop, The EDA Earthquake: Interoperable PDKs Shakin’ Up the Analog Design World

We will also have expert speakers and demos of solutions in support of a variety of standards including VMM,  1800 (SystemVerilog), 1801 (UPF), 1666 (SystemC), and IPL (Interoperable Pcell Libraries).

Be sure to follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook for additional updates and information.

I’m looking forward to seeing all of you at DAC!

Two of the standards-setting organizations in the EDA industry are going to merge. This is a good move in the standards game. Accellera, which creates standards for design and verification, and the SPIRIT Consortium, which produces standards for IP block reuse, have announced that they will combine forces. I look at it from two perspectives - bigger yet smaller at the same time: synergy and economy.

The synergy of this merger will come from a bigger view of standards required for modern IC design. Today’s enormously complex chips, known as SoCs (system-on-chip), are not designed from scratch. Existing pieces of proven designs, known as IP (intellectual property) blocks - IP for short - are integrated with new design ideas to form the more advanced chip designs. The designs then go through extensive verification. Looking at standards requirements that span both IP reuse and design/verification will bring greater interoperability overall.

Synergy will also come in the form of a common path to IEEE standardization. Both Accellera and SPIRIT have the goal to transfer their standards to the IEEE for its formal ratification, moniker, and cachet. They will now be able to combine best practices and knowledge of the process.

The economy of the merger comes from member companies being able to join a single organization and pay membership fees but once. While this was not the primary purpose of the merger, it is certainly a tangible benefit that is much appreciated by businesses in the current economic climate.

This isn’t the first time a significant merger between standards organizations has occurred in my industry. Accellera itself, as you probably know, was the result of a merger between Open Verilog International (OVI) and VHDL International (VI) ten years ago. I recall one naysayer of the OVI-VI merger predicting that it would be the death of the Verilog language. Now that Verilog is SystemVerilog, I’d say that merger was a big success.

I expect nothing less from this one.

Next month, the 46th Design Automation Conference will recognize a new dimension: social media conversations. Social media is emerging as a new “standard” for communicating with customers, coworkers, friends, and family. My company, Synopsys, and I are going to host a series of intimate-yet-open discussions focused on social media-related topics of particular interest to the EDA community.

The kitchen table-style conversations will take place at “Conversation Central,” a room located in the front of Synopsys’ main booth at the DAC exhibition. Conversation Central will be open to everyone at DAC. We will feature a new 30-minute discussion topic every hour throughout the first three days of the conference, repeating the sessions each day.

Conversation topics will include “So You Want to Be a Blogger?,” “Twitter for N00bs,” “Competitors in Cyberspace: Why Be Friends?,” and “Job Search: How Social Media Can Help Job Seekers and Employers.”

These and other conversations will be led by well-known EDA bloggers such as JL Gray, Sean Murphy, and Harry the ASIC Guy, as well as other media experts. During the sessions I’ll host, feel free to ask me questions like whether I think Facebook is better than MySpace or if Twitter will flourish or fade. (Talk about a standards game!) You know I’m happy to share my opinions.

Each day, Conversation Central will also have a “Meet the Bloggers” session where DAC attendees can meet and mingle with “celebrity” bloggers in our industry. For those of you on Twitter, we’ll promote these sessions as Tweet-ups. Follow us on Twitter: @synopsys or search Twitter for #snps.

The full schedule for Conversation Central sessions will be published on Synopsys’ DAC website in a couple of weeks. No registration or credentials are needed to visit Conversation Central. If the room is full, you’re welcome to hang around in the doorway and start your own conversation, or come back the next day for a repeat of each session.

DAC will take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, July 26-31 (yes, July – this is a DAClight savings year). I can’t wait to talk with you!

The Design Automation Standards Committee (DASC) is up to all sorts of good.  Its ongoing collaboration with the IEEE Standards Association’s Corporate Advisory Group (CAG) and plans to reach out to other standards-setting organizations in the design automation industry are indicative of its vitality as a sponsor of IEEE standards.

The DASC has been in existence for decades, and it’s important that it continues to evolve with changing times. As a “steering committee” of sorts for the majority of IEEE design automation standards, it approves and guides standards through both entity- and individual-based processes.

DASC has a goal of mutual cooperation with CAG, to support and further each other’s goals and mission. Specific areas where the two groups can work together include: standards-development tools & methods, mechanisms for obtaining industry feedback, international collaboration and outreach, an improved environment for corporate standards, growth of entity-based standards, and promoting critical mass in design automation related technology sectors.

The DASC updated its policies and procedures to allow for both individual and entity memberships. This became especially interesting (challenging?) when it came to voting rights. Could a person vote as both herself/himself and also as a company representative? Wouldn’t that be cheating? The DASC discussed the issue and decided to amend its policies and procedures to clarify that a person is not allowed to vote twice. Further, since voting privileges are earned in part by attending meetings, a person representing an entity at a meeting will still get credit for attendance as an individual.

Several entity-based standards projects for design automation are active under DASC sponsorship. The 1801 standard for low power IC design and verification was completed and approved by the IEEE Standards Association Standards Board in March 2009. The third update of the 1800 SystemVerilog standard - the first entity standard in design automation - has completed its initial ballot. The P1685 IP-XACT project which was initiated by the SPIRIT Consortium is expected to enter balloting later this year. The study group investigating the Verilog standard for analog/mixed-signal plans to start an entity working group by year’s end.

There is a small debate brewing over whether current mechanisms are well-coordinated or not for industry feedback on what standards are needed for design automation. The question was posed to the DASC to see if it wanted to set up a sub-group for coordination of and creating a roadmap for standards. The overall sentiment in the DASC was that it would be redundant with other industry efforts such as Accellera and SPIRIT - organizations that initiate standards based on industry need. I feel strongly that a standards roadmap effort would be fruitless and a waste of valuable time and energy. We tried this before and it was a failure. Repeating the effort would support the urban definition of insanity - doing the same thing and expecting different results. I also believe that the current mechanisms for developing new standards are working well. When a need for a standard arises, interested parties get together and form a working group under an existing organization (preferable) or under a new one. Donations are sought and work towards an industry standard begins. There is solid cooperation among organizations, especially between the IEEE and others such as Accellera, SPIRIT, OSCI, and VSIA (when it was active).

DASC is taking the right approach, IMHO, in that it will have a standing agenda item to invite representatives from other industry groups for input and discussion. This will encourage coordination better through this less-formal channel than a roadmap or additional, unnecessary infrastructure.