Proceedings of the conference on European design automation
Venue: European Design Automation Conference (1991)

Welcome to EDAC 91 in Amsterdam, the second event of a series that hopefully will develop towards the focal point in the area of design automation on European soil. We thank fellow professionals all over the world who responded so well to the first event in Glasgow, and we thank the 120 volunteers who, under the experienced guidance of Hugo De Man, evaluated the 241 submitted contributions and helped us in the putting together of the EDAC 91 programme. There are many other people who contributed to the preparations of EDAC 91 and whose names should be mentioned - too many1 Let me select Tatsuo Ohtsuki who, in addition to finding the best referees from Japan for paper evaluation, persuaded Hitoshi Watanabe to contribute to our opening session as a keynote speaker; or Raul Camposano for doing a great job in finding top notch referees in the USA. Let's mention Dave Storey, last year's Finance Chairman who, together with Gordon Adshead, successfully went through the tedious process of closing the books of EDAC 90, for us to know what the financial platform for EDAC 91 would be. Lots of credits go to Tracy Eglin, CEP's good spirit of EDAC 91, for putting up with everybody's (and particularly my) temper.Perhaps Paul Weil of ACMISIGDA should be explicitly given credit for operating as a negotiator with the US professional societies about all kinds of issues concerning sponsorship and 'in-cooperation' status. It is no longer a secret that that the US-DAC is concerned about EDAC's appearance as the European "Design Automation Conference". That is why this year (according to a proposal by Laurel Kaleda from the IEEE Computer Society) we have called EDAC the 'European Conference on Design Automation' - in case you may not have noticed that little change. Anyway, there will be some discussing and diplomatic activity around those issues in the coming months. As a result of that there may be some changes in policy in the near future. Whatever the result of all this is, EDAC shall continue to exist as the European forum devoted to design automation as a research item and a business activity. It will pursue its course, determined to integrate the various movements that are emerging in Europe with or without support from abroad. We are convinced that the integration of various efforts in Europe is an item of primary importance as the current scenario shows too much diversity. The coordination with the US and Japan is in focus. At the end of the line we envisage a set of yearly events in the US, the Far East and Europe that cooperate and are complementary at the same time.The RAI in Amsterdam gives us a little more space that the Glasgow site, enabling us to put the trade show into the centre of the conference activity, so the vendors may feel more comfortable this year. Depending on the success of this set-up we may allow the vendor activity to grow even more. Whatever the case may be, EDAC in any future form is going to consider a top quality technical programme to be the central event of the conference.Another item we absolutely feel committed to is to keep the European flavour of the conference - more than that, to develop a style of conference that captures the unique features of European research in front of a truly universal background. If DAC wants its trade show to move across the ocean to show in Europe, that is fine. However, it will have to function as an ingredient of a 'European' meal. It is going to be the exotic spice of US DA business on top of a European industrial structure that functions completely differently and has it own genuine dynamics.Everyone involved in setting up EDAC 91 sincerely hopes that you will enjoy the event. All of us will be eager to learn from you as to how we may improve the event. Give us your ideas. EDAC will need many volunteers in the future and perhaps you will find it worthwhile to contribute to its organisation in one way or another. Do not hesitate to talk to any of the organising committee members in Amsterdam.