Hey Folks, every year right before DAC, we typically see two “Must See at DAC"-type lists.

When Gartner Dataquest had an EDA group and used to co-sponsor the DAC opening night reception with EDAC, every year analyst Gary Smith would present a “what to see at DAC’ list. We can expect the now independent Gary Smith to once again reveal his top ten list at DAC (update, Gary has now posted his list). Gary’s shindig is after the DAC official reception, which is now co-sponsored by EDN, EDAC and the TSMC ecosystem. You can get more info on Gary's event from Gary’s website.

A couple of years ago, John Cooley started posting a list of his own:  “The Cheezy DAC Must See” list, which not only lists the tools John thinks attendees should demo, it also includes what giveaways vendors will offer in their booths.

Cooley’s list should be out shortly (update, Cooley has posted his list).

Personally, I get pre-briefed on most of these tools in advance of DAC and do the best I can to keep up with flood of new product releases (though I tend to stay away from upgrade announcements because most say the same old stuff: “10x faster, 5x more capacity and a new color for the GUI,” others are just slyly worded announcements of product patches but a few are significant). So far, in 2007, I’ve not seen any stop-the-presses/blockbuster, wow, type announcements, but all in all I’ve seen a healthy number of significant releases and I’ve penned most of them over the last couple of months. You can find them in the IC Design Center archives (any article over the last few months is essentially a product pre-brief)—if I wrote about it, I deemed it worthy of your attention and perhaps worthy of a look at DAC (of course I missed a few pre-briefs here and there—the run up to DAC is crazy time). I think if you cross-reference the IC Design Center product write ups with Cooley’s and Gary’s must see at lists, you can probably come up with a strong list of things to see at DAC. Of course leave some space in your schedule for surprises--there’s bound to be a few cool small sleeper companies or companies that don’t yet have the funds to buy a demo booth at DAC. If you hear about any sleepers, let me know. And of course leave some time open for the annual Denali Disco party.

See you at the show…