Front-End Design Track Submissions

Submission Format | Timeline | Guidelines | Frequently Asked Questions | Categories | Additional Information

The DAC Front-End Design Track is the premier forum the community of design engineers use to get together and share their challenges and their approaches to solving them.  It is one of the DAC Engineering Tracks.

Hardware architects, designers, SOC and IP developers, verification and validation engineers, methodology developers, application engineers, and managers/executives from leading companies worldwide present their experiences on effective design flows, methods, tool usage, and integration practices. Companies represented in the past include but are not limited to:

The Front-End Design Track includes presentations, poster sessions and a rich set of invited talks/panels to facilitate information sharing and interactions. It offers an exclusive opportunity to connect with and learn from other industry experts about best practices and current trends. There is no better way to improve your "design IQ" in such a short amount of time.

The track committee is looking for submissions that tackle relevant topics and provide high-quality content which target challenges, innovations and trends in chip design focusing on IC architecture, design, simulation, validation and verification solutions. Use of cloud  (public or private) for improving quality of results in front-end topics is of interest. Also, of interest are submissions addressing unique application requirements and specific challenges for advanced technologies, automotive, security, machine learning, cloud applications, and IoT.

 

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Submission Format

The following are required for your submission:

• The title of the presentation
• Abstract of 100-200 words
• Submission Categories
• Presenter(s) name, affiliation, city, state, country, and email address
• For evaluation by the Program Committee, a six (6) slides* PowerPoint presentation. Please review the guidelines below for suggested presentation structure.

*Additional information may be added in the notes section for each slide.

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Submission Timeline

• September 29, 2023: Submission site open.

• January 16, 2024: Submission deadline

• January 23, 2024: Submission deadline extended (due to multiple requests)

• February 26, 2024: Notification - Accept as presentation, accept as poster, or reject notifications will be emailed to authors.

• March 15, 2024: Confirmation Forms Due - Accepted presentations and posters must submit a confirmation form.

• April 15, 2024: Bio & Draft Slides Due - Submission deadline for draft of final presentations and/or posters and speaker bios (for full talks only). All material will be reviewed by Session Chairs.

• May 7, 2024: Slide Feedback - Deadline for Session Chairs to communicate poster and slide presentation feedback to authors.

• May 21, 2024: Final Slides and Video Due - Deadline for authors to submit final poster and/or presentation slides and video.

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Submission Guidelines

The following guidelines should be followed when preparing your slides for submission:

• Submissions are limited to 6 total slides*.
• Submissions must be in PowerPoint format: 16:9 aspect ratio.
• Consistent with DAC policy, company logos may appear only on the title slide.
• Slide 1: Title, author names and affiliations
• Authors may NOT be added after acceptance, so be sure to list all authors in the initial submission.
• Slide 2: Motivation
• Include an introduction that specifies the context and motivation of the submission. Examples: identify challenges associated with the design task at hand, clarify where in the design process the tools are used, and explain why the problem addressed is of interest to the audience.
• Slide 3: Main Idea
• Include details on the specific contributions of your work. Examples: innovative use of tools to achieve a specific goal, user enhancements to the tool and/or tool flow, dealing with scalability, details of integrating IP, study of design trade-offs, interfacing with manufacturing.
• Slide 4: Additional Content Slide
• Flexibility to add a slide that demonstrates value of the paper/idea
• Slide 5: Evidence
• Slide 6: Summary
• Include a summary that highlights the main results of your work. Results are needed to evaluate the impact of your contribution. Metrics that could be used include productivity enhancement, improved quality of silicon, decreased complexity, and reduced time-to-market.
• Important: Ensure that you have the necessary legal, trademark, copyright, and/or organizational approval needed to submit your presentation. Take appropriate steps to get this approval early, as the submissions deadline cannot be extended.

*Note: The presentation format described above is what is required for your submission to be reviewed by the Technical Program committee to decide Accept/Reject. The final presentation delivered at DAC will be made up of a Title slide, Author slide and 12 content slides. The expectation is that the final presentation will expand on the submission presentation.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Front-End Design Track submission process?

To spare experts from industry the many hours of preparation associated with a regular manuscript submission, Front-End Design Track submissions are in the form of a 6-slide PowerPoint presentation.

Based on technical program committee review, the accepted submissions will fall into two categories: (a) presentation and (b) poster. Authors of accepted submissions in the presentation category will present their work in Front-End Design Track sessions at the conference. They will also present a poster on the same subject during a Front-End Design Track poster session. Authors of accepted submissions in the poster category will present their work during a Front-End Design Track poster session.

Why Engineering Track? How is it different from the Research Track?

The Engineering Tracks are intended specifically for design engineers. Complemental to DAC’s Research focus on algorithms and methodology, the Engineering Track  focuses on the process of creating successful hardware and software products and/or IP, aims to illustrate benefits and challenges of EDA tools, and to provide educational and networking benefits for both end-users and tool developers. 

Are Front-End Design Track presentations and posters included in the DAC Proceedings?

No. However, Front-End Design Track posters and presentation slides will be made available online if the authors give permission. They will be made available on the DAC website after the conference as a part of the DAC Archives.

What kind of submissions from EDA companies make successful Front-End Design Track submissions?

The Front-End Design Track provides an EDA vendor-agnostic and objective forum for designers, IP developers and EDA tool users. To this end, Front-End Design Track submissions that are essentially marketing material from any company will be rejected. On the other hand, joint customer/vendor submissions written from the perspective of the designer/developer are encouraged and are a valuable part of the Front-End Design Track.

Do I have to use a DAC template for my extended abstract?

No. But you are required to follow the submission and formatting guidelines listed above.

May I add an additional author(s) after submission?

No. All authors should be included at submission.

My company’s legal department hasn’t approved my submission yet. Can the deadline be extended?

No. While we sympathize with your situation (many of us have been there), we have a tight schedule and are unable to accommodate late submissions. If your company permits, you may submit your work for review by the DAC technical program committee without such approval. However, you must obtain appropriate legal, copyright, and any other required permissions well-ahead of the deadline for submission of the final presentation and/or poster, if your submission is accepted for presentation in either format. You will not be able to present any work at the Front-End Design Track without suitable permission from your company.

Where do I submit?

All submissions will occur electronically through the DAC website. The original submission deadline wass January 16 and has now been extended through January 23, 2024 5:00 PM PT (USA).

What does an Front-End Design Track presentation entail?

Authors of accepted presentations will be allocated 15 minutes in a Front-End Design Track session: 13 minutes for the presentation, 1 minute for wrap-up, and 1 minute for Q/A. In addition, presenters are required to present a poster describing their work (see below for poster guidelines) at one of the hour-long Front-End Design Track poster sessions and be available for the entire hour to discuss their work with interested attendees. This provides an opportunity for extended discussion with interested members of the audience.

All accepted presentations are expected to submit a video of their presentation in advance of the event. This does not replace participation in the event. At least one author must attend and present at the live event.

What does an Front-End Design Track poster entail?

Authors are allocated a 42” tall x 36” wide area for a poster. Front-End Design Track poster sessions will run for one hour, and may include 20-30 posters. Poster authors are welcome to distribute additional material to interested attendees at the poster session. Such material can include extended abstracts and whitepapers.

What’s the difference between a poster and a presentation?

All Front-End Design Track work selected to be shared in the conference requires a poster. That poster will be displayed such that it will generate maximum exposure and discussion. The main location is the exhibit floor, with dedicated time for sharing the poster contents. 

Some work, on top of the posters mentioned above, will also require a presentation. The Front-End Design Track presentations are scheduled in sessions that run parallel to the rest of the DAC program. To clarify, the work that will provide a full presentation must produce both the presentation and the respective poster. The posters that accompany presentations will be displayed immediately after the session, close to the location where the presentation took place. 

What topics are appropriate for the Front-End Design Track?

We seek a wide variety of contributions from system engineers, hardware designers, IP developers, systems and software developers, application engineers, automotive electronics developers, security experts, IoT experts, and EDA vendor/customer teams. Documented EDA tool use may target electronic design and system design at all levels of abstraction and across all application domains. EDA tool marketing material is strongly discouraged and will be rejected.

How are Front-End Design Track submissions evaluated?

The Track program committee consists of industry experts that collectively represent years of design and software development experience. A good proposal addresses innovative tool use coupled with high-quality results. Extra notes are encouraged to be included in the submission. The considerations used by the program committee in acceptance decisions include:

• Significance of results supported by clear, measurable criteria, including, but not limited to: improved quality of silicon, improved reuse, decreased design process complexity, and reduced time-to-market.
• Level of innovation in tool use, e.g., utilizing one tool to obtain results that aid another tool, writing scripts to combine tools, user-facing enhancements, intelligent data management. A submission should not mirror the help section in the tool's user manual, but instead address a creative way of using the tool.
• Ability to overcome design challenges such as scalability, integrating IP, and bridging front-end/back-end gaps.
• Validation of the proposed techniques using real designs, case studies, or established benchmarks.
• Discussion of the conceptual limitations of tools and suggestions for future tool improvement. Solid technical contributions should address both the strengths and the weaknesses of the approach.
• Quality of material including writing, illustrations, and organization.

Product marketing material is inappropriate for the Front-End Design Track.

Does the Front-End Design Track have a “Best of” award?

Yes! Best Presentation and Poster awards will be selected from the Front-End Design Track. The awards will be based on (a) the quality of the submission, (b) the presentation given at DAC, and (c) the contents delivered at the poster-exclusive session. The final selection will be made at the conference by an award committee. The Best Presentation Award will be announced in the DAC general session. Best Poster Award winners are announced at the close of the Poster Reception.

Do Front-End Design Track participants have to register for DAC?

Full DAC conference registrants are automatically allowed to attend the Engineering Track. In addition, both Engineering Track speakers and any participants who want to attend only the Engineering Track sessions, Keynotes, and the Exhibit Floor at DAC can do so at a discounted registration rate via the “Engineering  Special”  registration package. Please see the DAC registration page for more details.

What should my slide presentation look like?

Remember that your slides must be presented in 13 minutes, plus 1 minute for wrap-up. Presenting meaningful content in a short time is challenging and requires careful thought and planning. Guidelines for preparing your final presentation are provided in the Engineering Track Speaker Resource Center. Example presentations from previous years can also be found in the DAC Archives.

My question isn’t answered here! Where can I get an answer?

Please address any unanswered questions to Ambar Sarkar, 61st DAC Engineering Tracks Program Chair

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Designer Track submissions may describe the overall design and/or application of tools for creating the hardware, IP and/or software components of a novel electronic system. We specifically seek contributions from system engineers, hardware designers, application engineers, and vendor/customer teams. Documented tool use may target electronic design and system design at all levels of abstraction and across all application domains. Regular submissions will be accepted in the following categories:

Front-End Design Track submissions may describe the overall design and/or application of tools for creating the hardware, IP and/or software components of a novel electronic system. We specifically seek contributions from system engineers, hardware designers, teams leveraging cloud for design, application engineers, and vendor/customer teams. Documented tool use may target electronic design and system design at all levels of abstraction and across all application domains. Regular submissions will be accepted in the following categories:

Front-End Silicon Design (FE)

Front end architecture, design and verification of current day System-on-Chip (SoC) including major components such as CPU, GPU, and DSP. Front end design of entire SoC sub-systems such as graphics, multimedia and modem.

• FE.01 Architecture Exploration/Design/Optimization of CPU, GPU, DSP, Modem, and Accelerators
• FE.02 Memory/Bus/Network Architecture/Design
• FE.03 System and High-Level Hardware Synthesis
• FE.04 Low-Power Design and Trade-offs
• FE.05 Design Verification, Test Planning, and Coverage
• FE.06 Validation, Logic Simulation, Emulation, Hardware Acceleration, FPGAs
• FE.07 Formal Verification, Linting
• FE.08 Logic/RTL Synthesis
• FE.09 Hardware Security: Modeling, Analysis and Synthesis
• FE.10 Hardware Security Threats and Metrics
• FE.11 Device, Circuit and Architecture Techniques for Security
• FE.12 Hardware Security Verification and Validation
• FE.13 System-Level Techniques for Security
• FE.14 Hardware Support for Software and Security
• FE.15 Machine Learning Techniques for Verification
• FE.16 Machine Learning Techniques for  Logic/RTL Synthesis
• FE.17 Chip Architectures and Designs Targeting ML/AI Applications
• FE.18 System Design Targeting ML/AI Applications
• FE.19 Cloud Adoption in Design and Verification Flows
• FE.20  Case Studies in Cloud Migration
• FE.21 Cloud Infrastructure for EDA Applications

• Accepted Front End Design Track presentations and posters are NOT included in the DAC proceedings. However, accepted Front-End Design Track submissions (both posters and presentation slides) will be made available on the DAC website after the conference as a part of the DAC Archives (subject to approval from the authors).
• All Front-End Design Track submissions, if accepted, will be shared with the rest of the conference as posters in dedicated 60-minute group sessions. Some submissions, on top of the poster session, will also be scheduled for 15-minute presentations.
• Best Presentation and Poster awards will be selected from the Front-End Design Track submissions. The awards will be based on (a) the quality of the submission, (b) the presentation given at DAC, and (c) the presentation at the poster session. 

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