DAC 2010 update: Smaller crowds but interest in FPGA design is high
Posted by Dave Orecchio on Thu, Jun 17, 2010 @ 04:17 PM
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- As the 47th Design Automation Conference winds down, we can reflect on this year's annual gathering of the chip design industry. The announced conference attendance was lower than previous years for sure, and we can assume several factors played a role in that drop-off: the economy, reduced travel budgets, and the variety of events and other ways designers can get information about new products (such as our own webinar series that we offer on a regular basis). That said, DAC is still ‘the' place to meet customers, partners, press and other important people that help shape the future of electronic design.
For GateRocket, it was a good show. Our booth was busy as we demonstrated the new capabilities of our RocketVision software and new versions of our RocketDrive hardware. The people that did come by our booth were well-qualified and had a keen interest in how we can help reduce verification time for them.
Our observation is also that FPGA use continues to expand beyond their traditional role as prototyping platforms. The increases in performance and capacity of the latest devices form Altera and Xilinx make them more than suitable for a wide range of production applications. Add in the time to market and programmability benefits of FPGAs, and designers and their management are truly responding to the ‘programmable imperative."
DAC is always a great opportunity to hear first hand what people are concerned about, and certainly verification is tops among the issues with FPGA designers. We met with several FPGA users who are very excited about the relief that our products can bring and we look forward to helping them and others make an impact on their design cycles.
It was nice seeing all of friends in the industry, too - people from Altera, Xilinx, the EDA companies and the press and bloggers who follow the latest developments in chip design. We look forward to seeing every one again next year in San Diego.