# Design Automation Conference

The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is an annual event that combines a technical conference with a trade show. It focuses on semiconductor and electronic system design, covering topics such as electronic design automation (EDA), artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and AI-driven algorithms for hardware design, system on chip (SoC) architecture, low-power electronics, design for manufacturability (DFM), hardware security, physical design, IP cores, chiplets, and embedded systems.

## Program

In 2024 DAC received 1545 research paper submissions. A technical program committee of 266 domain experts performed a double-blind review, selecting 337 papers (22%) for publication in the proceedings.
DAC also includes an Engineering Track for industry professionals and technical managers. This track addresses front-end design, back-end design, IP, and embedded systems and software. Submissions to the Engineering Track undergo a separate peer-review process conducted by a dedicated committee.
The trade show features approximately 100 companies in the field of design automation such as Cadence Design Systems, Synopsys, Siemens EDA and Ansys.
The DAC Young Fellows Program is an initiative aimed at supporting and inspiring graduate students and early-career researchers. The program provides approximately 150 participants with mentorship, travel grants, networking opportunities, and access to conference sessions, fostering their professional growth and encouraging engagement with the DAC community.
The Ph.D. Forum at DAC is a poster session for Ph.D. students to present and discuss their dissertation research with the EDA community.
HACK@DAC is a hardware security challenge contest for finding and exploiting security-critical vulnerabilities in hardware and firmware.
DAC is organized by hundreds of volunteer committee members from industry and academia. The conference is sponsored by two professional societies:
* ACM-SIGDA (Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on Design Automation) and
* IEEE-CEDA (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation), in technical cooperation with IEEE-SSCS (IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society).
The conference is usually held in June.

## Origins

DAC is the oldest and largest conference in EDA, starting in 1964. It grew out of the SHARE ("Society to Help Avoid Redundant Effort") design automation workshop. Its originators Marie Pistilli and Pasquale (Pat) Pistilli were honored by the EDA community. Pat received the highest honor in EDA industry, the Phil Kaufman Award, for this effort, and Marie was honored by having an award established in her name, the Marie Pistilli Award.
Up until the mid-'70s, DAC had sessions on all types of design automation, including mechanical and architectural. After that, for all intents and purposes, the focus shifted to electronic design. Currently, the topics at DAC also include embedded systems, autonomous systems, Artificial Intelligence hardware, hardware security, and Intellectual Property.
Also until the mid-'70s, DAC was strictly a technical conference. Then a few companies started to request space to show their products, and within a few years, the trade show portion of DAC became the main focus of the event. The first commercial DAC was held in June 1984. As a rough metric of the importance of the trade show portion, about 6,300 people attended DAC in 2018, whereas ICCAD, at least as strong technically but with no trade show, drew perhaps a tenth as many attendees.

## Recent history

The table below shows the edition, year, location, and the general chair of recent DAC events.
Key :
| † | Denotes future event |
| Edition | Year | Location | Conference center | General chair |
| 26th | 1989 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Las Vegas Convention Center | Don Thomas |
| 27th | 1990 | Orlando, Florida | Orange County Convention Center | Richard Smith |
| 28th | 1991 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | A. Richard Newton |
| 29th | 1992 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Daniel Schweikert |
| 30th | 1993 | Dallas, Texas | Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center | Alfred Dunlop |
| 31st | 1994 | San Diego, California | San Diego Convention Center | Michael Lorenzetti |
| 32nd | 1995 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Bryan Preas |
| 33rd | 1996 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Las Vegas Convention Center | Thomas Pennino |
| 34th | 1997 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Ellen Yoffa |
| 35th | 1998 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Basant Chawla |
| 36th | 1999 | New Orleans, Louisiana | New Orleans Morial Convention Center | Mary Jane Irwin |
| 37th | 2000 | Los Angeles, California | Los Angeles Convention Center | Giovanni De Micheli |
| 38th | 2001 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Las Vegas Convention Center | Jan M. Rabaey |
| 39th | 2002 | New Orleans, Louisiana | New Orleans Morial Convention Center | Bryan Ackland |
| 40th | 2003 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Ian Getreu |
| 41st | 2004 | San Diego, California | San Diego Convention Center | Sharad Malik |
| 42nd | 2005 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | William H. Joyner Jr. |
| 43rd | 2006 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Ellen Sentovich |
| 44th | 2007 | San Diego, California | San Diego Convention Center | Steven Levitan |
| 45th | 2008 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Limor Fix |
| 46th | 2009 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Andrew Kahng |
| 47th | 2010 | Anaheim, California | Anaheim Convention Center | Sachin Sapatnekar |
| 48th | 2011 | San Diego, California | San Diego Convention Center | Leon Stok |
| 49th | 2012 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Patrick Groeneveld |
| 50th | 2013 | Austin, Texas | Austin Convention Center | Yervant Zorian |
| 51st | 2014 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Soha Hassoun |
| 52nd | 2015 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Anne Cirkel |
| 53rd | 2016 | Austin, Texas | Austin Convention Center | Chuck Alpert |
| 54th | 2017 | Austin, Texas | Austin Convention Center | Mac McNamara |
| 55th | 2018 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Xiaobo Sharon Hu |
| 56th | 2019 | Las Vegas, Nevada | Las Vegas Convention Center | Rob Aitken |
| 57th | 2020 | Virtual due to COVID-19 | — | Zhuo Li |
| 58th | 2021 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Harry Foster |
| 59th | 2022 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Rob Oshana |
| 60th | 2023 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Jörg Henkel |
| 61st | 2024 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Vivek De |
| 62nd† | 2025 | San Francisco, California | Moscone Center | Helen Li |
| 63rd† | 2026 | Long Beach, California | Long Beach Convention Center | Renu Mehra |
* The cover of the 25th DAC Proceedings (1988).
* The Executive Committee of the 37th DAC in June 2000. Sitting in the bottom row are Lee Wood, David Blaauw, Mary Jane Irwin, Giovanni De Micheli, Jan Rabaey, Ellen Yoffa, Randal Bryant, and Marie R. Pistilli.
* Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak delivered the keynote address at the 48th DAC in 2011.
* 25 past DAC chairs at the 50th DAC celebration in Austin, June 6th, 2013.
* The 59th DAC was at Moscone West, San Francisco, July 2022.
* The poster session of the DAC Young Fellows at the 61st DAC in Moscone West, July 2024.
* Jim Keller delivering his keynote at the 61st DAC in 2024.