DFT Digest

For most of the average joes attending the Design Automation Conference, it’s a time to walk the exhibit floor, witness demos of the latest EDA gear, take in some interesting technical sessions, and maybe attend a party or reception.

But if you dig around the DAC website, you’ll see a link to something called “Collocated Events“. I guess, as is the case with any large conference, the DAC event makes it convenient for other events to happen around the same time and place: various meetings, symposia, even full conferences.

The one link to a collocated event that caught my eye, being a Design for Test guy, is the Global STC Conference, presented by the Semiconductor Test Consortium, taking place just before DAC, June 4-6, in San Diego.

STC is probably most known for promoting the OPENSTAR intiative (open architecture for ATE). They also work on standards for docking interfaces and probe cards, all very test-floor centric activities, not normally the concern of designers. The agenda is dominated by those issues, but on June 5th, the second day of the conference, there are couple of sessions that piqued my interest: “Cooperation Between EDA and ATE: Now More Important Than Ever“, presented by Ed Malloy of Cadence, and “Design for Test - Small Price to Pay on Silicon for High Product Quality“, by Prasad Mantri of Sun.

Hey I have an idea! How about selling conference sessions a la carte? Or in mix-and-match packages (”go to any 10 technical sessions - any conference or symposium of your choice - for only $249!”). Naahh… probably too much travel. But it sounds better sometimes than purchasing a complete conference pass for the 2 or 3 really interesting sessions…