DesignCon 2005 kicked off on with a line-up of twelve TecForums highlighted by a keynote address delivered by Ted Vucurevich, Chief Technical Officer of Cadence Design Systems. Mr. Vucurevich brought greetings from the scheduled keynoter Mike Fister, Chief Executive Officer of Cadence. Mr. Fister could not attend due a commitment related to Cadence's announced acquisition of Verisity.
Mr. Vucurevich's message focused on the trend towards utilizing collaboration in order to empower designers in their creative process. He showcased the role of design engineers in enabling the "cool" in consumer electronics. He also stressed the reality of how products are now being produced by ecosystems of companies where success is measured only after the product is out in the market place and selling in volume.
The first day of DesignCon wrapped up with two Conference Panels on serial design and component characterization.
Tuesday’s Keynote Address was delivered by Dr. Aart de Geus, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Synopsys. His presentation focused on “Techonomics” or the technological and economic pressures present in the electronics industry today. Dr. de Geus encouraged engineers to take a systemic approach to designing semicodunctors and praised engineers for their work which he claimed is changing the world.
Tuesday was the opening day of the exhibits hall which featured 100 + exhibitors from leading technology companies in the industry. The first day of exhibits was highlighted by a reception hosted by Wavecrest.
Complimentary Conference Panels, exploring challenges facing ASIC design, improving verification and PCB laminates, rounded out the day’s educational programming.
DesignCon 2005 continued on Wednesday with a Keynote Address delivered by Dr. Wally Rhines, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mentor Graphics. Dr. Rhines discussed innovations in EDA that will allow for cost-effective system-on chip with gate counts in the tens of millions.
In addition to the technical papers that were presented throughout the day, Executive Panels were offered. The Executive Panels addressed ESL design and the underlying business reasons to source work differently than has been done in the past.
Sergio Camerlo, Director of Engineering for Cisco Systems, served as the DesignCon 2005 Conference Chair. Mr. Camerlo contributed in making this year's DesignCon a success through his leadership and guidance. He also chaired the Wednesday Plenary Panel on design verification. In a ceremony following the panel, he passed the gavel to the DesignCon 2006 Conference Chair, Darlene Solomon. Dr. Solomon serves as Vice President of Agilent Technologies and Director of Agilent Laboratories.
The last day of DesignCon 2005 comprised three TecForums that discussed issues concerning time and frequency domain measurements and analysis, and volatile memory devices.