DAC News

Dr. Mar Hershenson to Receive Marie R. Pistilli Award at 47th DAC for Contributions to the Advancement of Women in EDA

Annual award to be presenting during Workshop for Women in Electronic Design (WWED)

LOUISVILLE, Colo. –– May 6, 2010 –– Dr. Mar Hershenson, Vice President of Product Development in the Custom Design Business Unit at Magma Design Automation, Inc., is the recipient of the 11th annual Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) Achievement Award. The award honors Hershenson for her leadership, and for her personal and professional contributions to women in the industry. The Marie R. Pistilli Award will be presented during the Workshop for Women in Electronic Design (WWED) on Monday, June 14th, 2010, from 11:30 am to 2:00 pm as part of the 47th Design Automation Conference (DAC). DAC takes place from June 13-18, 2010, at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, CA.

“Mar is a wonderful role model – as a professor, a patent holder, an award-winner, a business executive and a volunteer on executive committees of ICCAD and DAC,” said Pamela Parrish, WWED 2010 Chair and Open SPARC University Program Manager, Oracle Corporation. “Men and women in EDA have benefited from her energy, intelligence and commitment. She is a worthy recipient of this award.”

Dr. Hershenson is in charge of product development for the mixed-signal migration and optimization design tools at Magma. She joined the company through its acquisition of Sabio Labs, where she was the CEO and a co-founder. Sabio Labs offered an equation-based design environment for mixed-signal ICs. Hershenson was directly involved in developing Sabio’s ground-breaking technology and in all core aspects of building the company, from financing to sales to engineering.

Prior to Sabio Labs, she was CTO and co-founder of Barcelona Design, where she commercialized her graduate research in the application of convex optimization to analog circuit design. Before this, Hershenson worked at leading Silicon Valley companies such as Linear Technology Corporation and Apple Computer. Her work spans the range from low-level components such as voltage regulators for microprocessor applications to systems such as low-power video cards for laptops.

Dr. Hershenson has been awarded eight patents and has several others pending. From 2003 to 2009, she was a Consulting Professor at Stanford University, teaching analog circuit design courses. She is planning to join Stanford University again in this role in the 2010-11 school year. Hershenson has received several awards for her work, including recognition on the MIT Technology Review’s prestigious TR100 Young Innovator list in 2002. She served on the ICCAD Executive Committee for 2007 and 2008 and on the DAC Technical Panel Committee for 2009.

About the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award
Women have made important contributions and strides in the EDA industry for over 50 years. In an effort to recognize those who have dedicated time towards these achievements, the DAC Executive Committee presents the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award to honor an individual — male or female — who has made significant contributions in helping women advance in the field of EDA technology. A list of previous recipients of the Award is available at the DAC website.

About the Workshop for Women in Electronic Design
The Workshop for Women in Electronic Design, held during the annual Design Automation Conference, is a professional development event for men and women in the field of electronic design and design automation. The workshop serves as a forum for exchanging ideas for building a successful career within the profession and offers an opportunity for professional networking. This year’s program includes an address by the yearly recipient of the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Award, a keynote by Patty Azarello, founder and CEO of Azarello Group, and a panel discussion where successful role models discuss how to take more control of your career and get more success out of the effort you put into your job.

About DAC
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) is recognized as the premier event for the design of electronic circuits and systems, and for Electronic Design Automation (EDA) and silicon solutions. A diverse worldwide community representing more than 1,000 organizations attends each year, represented by system designers and architects, logic and circuit designers, validation engineers, CAD managers, senior managers and executives to researchers and academicians from leading universities. Close to 60 technical sessions selected by a committee of electronic design experts offer information on recent developments and trends, management practices and new products, methodologies and technologies. A highlight of DAC is its Exhibition and Suite area with approximately 200 of the leading and emerging EDA, silicon, IP and design services providers. The conference is sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery/Special Interest Group on Design Automation (ACM/SIGDA), the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDA Consortium), and the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA).

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For more information, please contact: Michelle Clancy Press@dac.com
408 – 501-8829