DAC, The Chips to Systems Conference (previously known as the Design Automation 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.

Program 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.

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.

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 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 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:

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 or July.

Origins DAC is the oldest and largest conference in EDA, starting 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, and Marie was honored by having an award established in her name, the Marie Pistilli Award.

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. 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 DAC with a dedicated exhibit hall was held in June 1983. 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

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

+Key Denotes future event Edition Year Location Conference center General chair 20th 1983 Miami Beach, Florida Fontainebleau Miami Beach Charles E. Radke 21th 1984 Albuquerque, New Mexico Albuquerque Convention Center Patricia H. Lambert 22th 1985 Las Vegas, Nevada Caesars Palace Hillel Ofek 23th 1986 Las Vegas, Nevada Caesars Palace Dan Nash 24th 1987 Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach Convention Center Lawrence A. O'Neill 25th 1988 Anaheim California Anaheim Convention Center Dennis W. Shaklee 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 60th 2023 San Francisco, California Moscone Center Jörg Henkel 61st 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 Mehra64th2027San Jose, CaliforniaSan Jose Convention Center

Gallery

See also 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

External links Design Automation Conference website dblp: Design Automation Conference