DVCon Europe to Energize Munich in November

by Gabe Moretti
October 27, 2015

The second DVCon Europe conference will be held in Munich, Germany on November 11–12.  The conference is sponsored by Accellera Systems Initiative and follows the very successful first edition held last fall. Martin Barnasconi, General Chair of this year’s conference, remarked on the success of the first conference: “With more than 250 attendees in 2014, full tutorial rooms, a good variety of technical presentations and a nicely crowded exhibition floor, we can conclude that DVCon Europe fulfils a clear need: an industry-oriented conference, focusing on design and verification of electronic systems and integrated circuits.” 

Research and development in electronics is a world-wide activity, yet most popular conferences for designers and those involved in EDA development are held in the United States.  Accellera recognized the need to provide the same level of professionalism and opportunity outside the US.  Thus, DVCon Europe and DVCon India have enriched the list of conferences sponsored by the consortium.

This year DVCon Europe will bring the engineering community together to share experiences and present the practical side of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) standards, languages and methodologies for design and verification. The structure of the conference follows that of DVCon US, which has for many years been the leading venue for professionals engaged in all sorts of design and verification projects in EDA. Obviously, the European edition of DVCon will bring some unique concepts that are of interest of the design community in Europe.

Martin also noted, “New for DVCon Europe 2015 is the special focus on Automotive design and verification, with the introduction of a dedicated session on functional safety. Furthermore, a plenary panel session has been added to the program to discuss the requirements and needs for functional safety in the Automotive value chain. Also, the keynote this year will focus on the Automotive domain and will give attendees a glimpse into the future of Automotive.”

Hans Adlkofer, Vice President Automotive System Group at Infineon Technologies AG, will deliver the keynote speech “On the Road to Self-driving Cars.” Given the highly popularized on-going projects in this area, the speech will add important information on the leading edge work in automotive design.  The nature of the self-driving car provides examples of architecture design, mixed/signal development, software/hardware co-development, IP integration, verification of complex systems, and even the implementation of a local Internet of Things.

As with all DVCon conferences, the number of submitted papers was far larger than could be accommodated in the two days of the conference.  The Technical Program Committee, chaired by Matthias Bauer of Infineon Technologies, worked very hard in the selection process.  The committee developed a four-track program covering System Level Design & Verification, Advanced Verification & Validation, Design for Functional Safety, IP Reuse and Design Automation, Analog and Mixed-Signal Design & Verification, Lower Power Techniques and RTL-Simulation Techniques.

The DVCon conferences also always offer tutorials of good quality, and this conference is not an exception.  The Tutorial Committee, chaired by Joachim Geishauser of Freescale Semiconductor, has selected 15 topics ranging from UVM to SystemVerilog to SystemC.  Other tutorial sessions cover a number of design methods from mixed-signal verification to FPGA debug to verification for industry standards compliance.

Mike Bartley of Test and Verification Solutions is the Chair of the Poster session, which provides an additional opportunity for researchers and professionals to document their work.  At last count there were 25 exhibitors occupying all of the available floor space. This is an important signal that the industry values the conference and the quality of its attendees.

Both DVCon India and DVCon Europe have started a tradition of holding a Gala Dinner on the first evening of the conference, offering an excellent ambiance for networking while providing information on the latest Accellera standardization initiatives. I know it is November in Munich and the weather can be cold, but Munich is a fun town, and the conference offers an outstanding opportunity for attendees to learn and interact with leading professionals in their fields.