The fast run

This year’s Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE 2011) conference takes place at the Alpexpo Conference Center in the alpine city of Grenoble, France, March 14-18.

The event’s centerpieces will be two high-profile keynotes. The first will be by British computing pioneer Professor Stephen Furber of the University of Manchester and will discuss some of his recent work on “Biologically inspired massively parallel architectures—computing beyond a million processors.” The second is by Philippe Magarshack, Central R&D vice president at STMicroelectronics. His chosen topic is “How technology R&D leadership brings a competitive advantage in the fields of multimedia convergence and power applications.”

More than 270 papers and presentations have been selected for this year’s DATE, out of an initial 950 submissions. “We have reached comparable numbers as in the record year of 2010,” says DATE’s General Chair, Professor Bashir M. Al-Hashimi of the University of Southampton. “This is a clear sign that our strategy of choosing the key European semiconductor sites of Dresden in 2010 and Grenoble in 2011 as DATE venues is proving a success.” Professor Enrico Macii, of the Politecnico di Torino and program chair, added: “North America accounted for 28% and Asia for 22% of the submissions.”

DATE divides its papers into four strands. ‘D’ for ‘Design and automation’; ‘A’ for ‘Applications’; ‘T’ for ‘Test’; and ‘E’ for ‘Embedded Sofware’. 

On track

The D Track features the largest number of sessions in the program, offering 124 technical papers and 62 interactive presentations. “We have observed a significant increase in submissions addressing topics such as networks-on-chip and system design/synthesis, as well as emerging technologies, systems and applications,” said Professor Macii. Other popular D topics include low- power design, architectural design/synthesis and reconfigurable computing.

In the A Track, 36 papers have been grouped in sessions by six application domains. “The traditional areas in Communication, Consumer and Multimedia Systems, are very well covered, in addition to those in Secure, Dependable and Adaptive Systems,” noted Pol Marchal, A Track chair and senior researcher at IMEC. “Younger topics, such as Transportation Systems, Medical/Healthcare Systems and Energy Generation as well as Recovery and Management Systems are ramping up in terms of paper contributions, offering the DATE attendees a wide range of application domains to be explored and investigated.”

The 32 papers in the T Track range in subject from high-level design-for-test architectures to nanometer defect modeling, and from low-power digital to high-performance analog and RF. “A wide-spectrum coverage of test technology in its full breadth,” said Erik Jan Marinissen, a principal scientist at IMEC and T Track Chair. “In addition, DATE offers the unique opportunity to treat topics, such as low-power or 3D stacking, from a combined, design, automation and test angle, as all these communities are represented at this conference.”

The program for the E (Embedded Software) Track is focused on: Real-Time, Networked Embedded Systems; Software-Centric System Design Exploration; Model-Based Design and Verification; and Embedded Software Architectures and Principles. “We have attracted an important number of submissions in these areas, and this has allowed us to select a total of 19 contributions of outstanding quality, which will certainly represent milestones in the future development of these disciplines,” said Petru Eles, of Sweden’s Linköping University and chair of the E Track.

In focus

This year’s main themes are ‘Smart Devices of the Future’ and ‘Intelligent Energy Management: Supply and Utilization’, both of which have their own dedicated days during DATE. “Future electronic systems will continue to be dominated by the convergence between design technology (hardware and software) and fabrication technologies to master next-generation smart devices,” explained Professor Ahmed Jerraya of CEA-Leti Minatec and chair of the Smart Devices strand.

“The design of highly integrated and autonomous intelligent devices for healthcare, mobile and consumer applications requires deep knowledge of technology to reach the required performance. Hardware and software design technologies are being employed increasingly to overcome fabrication imperfections and to improve yield. This special day will focus on applications, key enabling technologies and future trends driving future smart devices.”

The centerpiece of the day will be a keynote address on “Driving innovations in mobile devices and solutions” by Dr. Hannu Kauppinen, director and head of Business Development at the Nokia Research Center.

“Companies such as ST Microelectronics, IBM and Cisco have historically been interested in power and energy consumption only at the chip or device scale, but they are now turning their attention to large scale power generation and management issues as an important new application area,” said Dr. Paul Mitcheson of Imperial College London and chair of the Intelligent Energy strand.

“The links between computation, power electronics, and power transmission and distribution systems are therefore becoming stronger as we move into a world of increasing energy utilization and efficiency. This special day will cover recent innovations in enabling technologies for portable devices—energy-harvesting and wireless powering—and applications of intelligent systems to improve the utilization of electricity supply through smart metering and infrastructure.”

For this focus area, Carmelo Papa, an executive vice president with STMicroelectronics, will discuss his company’s specific energy-related activities.

On top

The DATE 2011 Executive Track will include three sessions where 15 top executives from leading global user companies and providers will discuss their technology roadmaps, business decision-making, investment and returns as well as their long-term visions.

In addition, DATE 2011 offers 18 panels and special sessions with strong industrial contributions. The special sessions address key aspects in the design and test of electronic and embedded systems in multiple areas including die stacking, power management, many-core platforms, automotive systems, and component-based design for embedded systems.

The panels cover a comprehensive range of topics from test automation for embedded software to a critical review of the current state of logic synthesis and from verification methodology standards to low power formats.

DATE highlights

Opening Plenary

Tuesday 15th March, 2011 — Dauphine Room

8.30am: Opening remarks and awards

9.10am: “Biologically inspired, massively parallel architectures: computing beyond a million processors”
Stephen Furber, ICL Professor of Computer Engineering, School of Computer Science, University of Manchester

9.50am: “How technology R&D leadership brings a competitive advantage in the fields of multimedia convergence and power applications”
Philippe Magarshack, Central R&D vice president, STMicroelectronics

Executive sessions

Tuesday, 15th March, 2011 — Oisans Room

11.30am-1.00pm: Ideas on the future of EDA and the IP Industry
Panelists: Ajoy Bose, president & CEO, Atrenta; John Bruggeman, chief marketing office, Cadence Design Systems; Krisztian Flautner, vice president R&D, ARM; Christoph Heer, vice president, Infineon; Joachim Kunkel, senior vice president and general manager, Synopsys; Naveed Sherwani, president & CEO, Open Silicon. Moderator: Peggy Aycinena, EDA Weekly.

2.30pm-4.00pm: 22nm challenges and wealth/knowledge creation opportunities
Panelists: Rudy Lauwereins, vice president, Smart Systems, IMEC; Maria Marced, president, TSMC Europe; Leon Stok, vice president, IBM; Gerd Teepe, vice president, GlobalFoundries. Moderator: Anton Domic, senior vice president and general manager, Synopsys.

5.00pm-6.30pm: System-level complexity and innovation
Panelists: Simon Bloch, vice president and general manager, Mentor Graphics; Donald Friedberg, vice president, LSI; Philippe Magarashack, vice president, STMicroelectronics; Amit Majumdar, fellow, AMD; Raj Yavatkar, fellow, Intel. Moderator: Gary Smith, EDA.

Special day: Smart devices of the future

Wednesday, 16th March, 2011 — Oisans Room

8.30am-10.00am: Embedded tutorial: Smart devices for the cloud era

11.00am-12.30pm: Hot topic/embedded tutorial: Ultra-low-power smart devices

2.00pm-2.30pm: Keynote: “Wireless innovations for smartphones”
Dr. Hannu Kauppinen, director and head of Business Development, Nokia Research Center

2.30pm-4.00pm: Hot topic: Smart medical implants

5.00pm-6.30pm: Panel session: Integrating the real-world interfaces

Special day: Intelligent energy management

Thursday, 17th March, 2011 — Oisans Room

8.30am-10.00am: Tutorial: Energy transfer, generation and power electronics

11.00am-12.30pm: Smart energy generation: Design automation and the smart grid

1.30pm-2.00pm: Keynote: “Smart energy at ST”
Carmelo Papa, executive vice president, STMicroelectronics

2.00pm-3.30pm: Smart energy utilization: From circuits to consumer products

4.00pm-5.30pm: Panel: What does the power industry need from the EDA industry and what is the EDA industry doing about it?
All times and speakers are subject to change but were correct at time of going to press. For full details of the DATE 2011 program and information on registration, confirm on the conference website, www.date-conference.com.