The recent announcement of the Council for Electronic Design Automation's (CEDA) formation within IEEE is welcome news to those of us whose careers are dedicated to EDA's advancement. Though EDA has thrived in IEEE for many years, in many ways it was an orphan spread across any number of IEEE technical activities. Sure, it worked organizationally, but many of us believed IEEE could better serve its members with a group committed to EDA’s future.
With a goal to create a focal point to ensure IEEE responsiveness to our technical community of more than 5000 active members, CEDA is poised to give our industry the recognition and visibility it deserves. In fact, CEDA has the potential to become the vision for true innovation.
Under IEEE’s auspices, CEDA today sponsors a variety of EDA events. They include conferences such as Design Automation Conference (DAC) and International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD), and the publications IEEE Transactions on CAD (TCAD) and IEEE Design and Test of Computers (D&T).
We’re about to launch a Distinguished Speaker Series to feature Best Paper Award winners from DAC, ICCAD, and TCAD. Authors of these papers will be invited to give in-depth presentations of their work, offering more detail than the published paper or conference talk. Each talk will occur before a live audience of experts, and discussion will follow the presentation. Events will be videotaped and posted on the CEDA website.
At this year's Design Automation Conference, CEDA's Distinguished Speaker Series event will take place on Monday, July 24, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from 5:30-7 p.m. A beer and refreshments reception will be followed by a talk from Janusz Rajski, chief scientist at Mentor Graphics Corporation and the winner of this year’s IEEE Transactions on CAD Best Paper Award. Dr. Rajski will give a tutorial and offer some background on the paper titled, “Embedded Deterministic Test,” that was published in the IEEE Transactions On Computer-Aided Design Of Integrated Circuits And Systems. This event is open to all.
CEDA has received broad support and community momentum, but more can be done. We’re faced with the challenge to continue to build on the innovative pace by rapidly drawing new talent and entrepreneurship to the field. Moore’s Law has held true for 40 years, and the semiconductor industry is still a growing, dynamic business. We will soon approach the age of the billion-transistor chip. Analog circuits operate at ever-higher frequencies and lower power levels. New technologies like nanodevices promise new rounds of innovation.
One fact is true when it comes to all of these semiconductor advances: EDA is a key enabler. Without new design methodologies and tools, we cannot harness the capabilities promised by advances in semiconductor fabrication. Thus, CEDA needs to engender technical activities that excite and challenge our community to new capabilities and opportunities.
That’s where you come in. Like all industry organizations, CEDA needs help from a variety of fronts to support its technical activities, conferences, publications, and standards. We’re bringing together several important resources, but we need a larger community of contributors.
CEDA is a promising start to what we hope will be an exciting era of innovation, creativity and invention within EDA. These activities are made possible through the participation of IEEE members. We want to hear from you; but more important, we want your help. Please consider volunteering your time and talents to making CEDA a success.
For more details, visit CEDA www.c-eda.org.