SGB Meeting – March 2010 SIGDA Viability Review Patrick H. Madden SIGDA Chair

SGB Meeting – March 2010 Finances ~1.6M fund balance over past few years (~1M required minimum) Relatively stable thanks in large part to management of past two chairs. Revenue from smaller conferences, DL, very helpful Major financial concern: Design Automation Conference (~4M budget) Co-sponsored with IEEE and a design automation industry consortium Full DAC discussion would require months worth of slides DAC is a ticking time bomb. We are working very hard to defuse it. The main problem: –Industry exhibitors have smaller budgets, and are purchasing less floor space. Much of their content is now delivered over the web. This means less exhibit income, fewer industry attendees. What are we doing? –Trying to shrink the exhibit floor in a planned way. –Minimize required hotel room blocks, and lower agreed conference rates. –Minimize DAC expenses (smaller catered events, fewer activities). –Change the thinking of the DAC organizers from envisioning a massive industry- driven exhibit to one where the primary focus is top-notch design automation research. –Reduce expenses everywhere, to offset the lack of income from DAC. In many respects, our fund balance is for a rainy day; that day has come.

SGB Meeting – March 2010 Member Benefits Who are we serving? Researchers, students, professionals involved in the design and fabrication of integrated circuits Many of these people are electrical engineers; as such, there is collaboration with IEEE How do we serve them? Sponsor or co-sponsor the most important conferences in the area Over a dozen recognized annual events Access to DA literature in the digital library Many programs of an educational nature Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems Travel grants and scholarships

SGB Meeting – March 2010 Goals: Educational PhD Forum Each year at the Design Automation Conference, we invite top graduate students to present their dissertation work. This has become a heavily attended and prestigious event University Booth Live demonstrations of research from groups from around the world Design Automation Summer School Graduate students from a wide range of schools are brought together for a series of intensive short courses from recognized experts. Relatively few universities have the depth to cover all of design automation; the DASS is an effort to provide a more rounded education CADathlon Programming contest modeled after the ICPC; problems are formulated by both academic and industry researchers, and are based off of key research contributions in the literature. Grants and scholarships for design automation researchers ACM/SIGDA Outstanding PhD dissertation award ACM/SIGDA Outstanding New Faculty Award

SGB Meeting – March 2010 Goals: Research Support Sponsorship of all of the top venues IEEE/ACM McCalla Best Paper Award ACM/IEEE A. Richard Newton Technical Impact Award Access to all DA content in the Digital Library for SIGDA members In earlier years, we distributed a DVD-ROM Supercompendium, with the intention of making research papers as widely available as possible. Technical Committees Small groups in sub-areas of design automation: tasked with identifying important papers, starting or supporting workshops, and in outreach. Also active in benchmarking, and in making research tools available. This effort is growing; we hope the number of active TC members will increase, with some transitioning into roles within the SIGDA board.

SGB Meeting – March 2010 Goals: Recognition and Visibility SIGDA Pioneering Achievement Award Goal is to recognize early leaders, and to connect them with the current generation of researchers. In the past three years, we have had talks by Gene Amdahl, Ed McCluskey, and Martin Davis. Pioneer talk videos are available in the Digital Library. Visibility of Design Automation To encourage students to pursue careers in DA research, we are hoping to make our work more visible. On-line video of talks, technical presentations. Travel support for students, forums for them to present work and interact. Outreach through Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Transition of the SIGDA website to Plone (in progress)