I attended DesignCon last week and covered two events: “Where’s the ROI on DFM?”, which was a lively business panel, and a panel moderated by EDA industry analyst Gary Smith on functional verification.

I actually planned to write-up a few more events but was sad to find that the others I attended lacked substance and were largely product and/or marketing pitches. I’ve been attending DesignCon my whole career from the days when it was called Design SuperCon and was run by HP. I’ve moderated several panels over the years and even hosted technical tracks. A few years ago, the IEC took over the conference and actually improved it. I think the shows back in 2006 and 2007 were both great with some strong keynotes and panels as well as technical tracks. But this year, the show seemed to be wobbling on the tracks, so to speak, and I wonder if it is in danger of becoming another marketing con. For next year’s show I suggest the IEC do a bit better job of screening its keynotes and closely monitoring the presentations of its vendor-heavy panels…The Tuesday and Wednesday keynotes were company/product pitches and the FPGA panel “Executive Views on the Turbulent FPGA Landscape" never addressed the topic of the panel, when in fact the FPGA industry revenue declined two percent year over year in 2007, as the FPGA industry is now undergoing a bit of cannibalism. Research firm Gartner suggests its going to rebound and grow around 16% this year? From negative 2 percent to positive 16 percent means FPGA has to grow quite a bit in an ecomy that looks pretty ominous? So the topic of the panel was really timely, but unfortunately it didn't deliver an answer. Foreshadowing? we'll see.
 
With all that said, my colleague here at EDN Paul Rako told me he really enjoyed the analog tracks he attended. I also enjoy the two sessions I covered, so, not all is bad with DesignCon, the tracks just need a bit of straitening out.