Maybe it was just me, but the energy level at the 47th Design Automation Conference was higher than it’s been in a number of years. It could have been a combination of things - general signs of an exit from The Great Recession; the M&A activity in the industry; a new market approach from Cadence got everyone a-buzz; and everywhere I went I heard discussions about Cloud Computing (and it wasn’t just because I was stood there 
).
Bernie Meyerson, vice president of innovation at IBM, made a keynote speech on Wednesday that was wide ranging, but spent a great deal of time asserting that Cloud Computing is the future of IC Design. Richard Goering wrote this up nicely on his blog here. You should take a look. The full keynote video is here, pick up what Dr. Meyerson had to say about the Cloud at around minute 38:00.
A crucial point to emphasize from Dr. Meyerson’s speech is the real issue at the heart of the computing challenge facing all industries, not just electronic design - IT resource overhead. While it is tempting, as engineers, to focus on the technology of cloud computing (performance, upload time, latency, security, etc.) it is this business aspect of the equation that is the driver. ie. The Total Cost of Ownership of data centers is out of control - driving a company’s balance sheet in the wrong direction.
If you missed the panel “Does IC Design Have a Future in the Clouds?“, don’t worry. It was videoed and should be coming online soon. For me, it was great fun to participate with a tremendous amount of interaction with the audience. To the point where the Chair (Raul Camposano) had to cut off questions from the floor. (He almost cut of Harry “The ASIC Guy“, but he was saved by the crowd.) Richard Goering mentioned on his blog that he will put up a post about the panel soon, but in the meantime, you can catch a write-up of some of the highlights over at EETimes by Nicolas Mokhoff here.
If you were at the show, what were your impressions? If you weren’t able to make it - did the various online channels get you what you needed?
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