{"id":7412,"date":"2015-05-25T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T07:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=7412"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:46:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:46:05","slug":"dac-and-embedded-techcon-embedded-and-eda-coming-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2015\/05\/25\/dac-and-embedded-techcon-embedded-and-eda-coming-together\/","title":{"rendered":"DAC and Embedded TechCon – embedded and EDA coming together?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is hard to believe that it is almost 20 years since Mentor Graphics started to build a presence in the embedded software world by acquiring Microtec Research [and getting me as a result]. There has been much development and numerous other acquisitions [most notably Accelerated Technology] since then and the Embedded Systems Division [a.k.a. Mentor Embedded] has gone from strength to strength.<\/p>\n

However, the worlds of embedded software and electronic design automation [EDA] have remained surprisingly separate …<\/p>\n

I always had a positive view of Mentor’s strategy – actually I still do. It just seemed logical to bring together the, naturally interdependent, software and hardware design disciplines. To a significant extent, the meeting of minds has occurred – various co-verification technologies have found wide acceptance and designing low power devices is necessarily a team effort. At the same time, there are still two distinct communities within companies and the industry as a whole. Manifestations of this are trade shows and conferences, where there are embedded events and EDA events. Well, that is the way it has been …<\/p>\n

Maybe the situation is about to change and, if you in or near San Francisco in the week beginning 8 June, you can participate. At the Moscone Center, a number of events are taking place. At the core is the Design Automation Conference<\/a> [DAC], which has been the foremost EDA conference for many years. If you are unfamiliar with DAC, you can get a flavor of the whole event and its culture by reading the blog<\/a> of the DAC General Chair, Anne Cirkel, whom I know well. This year, the conference has a strong embedded track – I served on the selection committee for this part of the conference and there is some very interesting material in the program.<\/p>\n

\"52DAC_logo_text_med\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As if that were not enough, there is more. DAC is a classic technical conference, with a rich mixture of the theoretical and the practical. Right next door, also at Moscone, another conference will be taking place simultaneously: the Embedded TechCon<\/a>, which has the tag line “Everything Practical. Nothing Theoretical”. I think that says it all. It is hard to generalize about a large population like the engineers that specialize in embedded software development, but, in my experience, the one thing I would say is common to all the ones whom I have met is a bent towards the practical. This will be a very interesting event.<\/p>\n

If you are an embedded software developer and you attend either DAC or Embedded TechCon, I would love to hear your impressions. Please comment, email or use social media. I look forward to hearing from you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is hard to believe that it is almost 20 years since Mentor Graphics started to build a presence in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[412,413,300,615],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-dac","tag-design-automation-conference","tag-embedded-software","tag-embedded-techcon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10368,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7412\/revisions\/10368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7412"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=7412"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=7412"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}