CDNLive EMEA: An Intern's Perspective

CDNLive EMEA is often cited as the most exciting event of the year for Cadence. This being the first time I would be attending any CDNLive, I was eager to see for myself if this was true and I must say in retrospect, that all my expectations were met. The event took place over two and a half days in a beautiful hotel that was teeming with people at all hours, who had come from all over the globe to attend talks, take part in workshops, exchange ideas and discuss the latest, most innovative technologies. There was a continuous buzz and feeling of excitement in the air with people hurrying about trying to make the most of CNDLive EMEA, as there was always so much to see and attend to.

As part of the Cadence Academic Network I had the chance to attend many of the presentations taking place at the Academic track, where professors and PhD students alike presented their research to a wide audience of attendees both from academia and industry. A presentation, given from the ICube Laboratory in Strasbourg, France, was my personal favorite. Its aim was to describe ways in which tools from the domain of microelectronics can be adapted to biology. The paper explained how a biological system could be “translated” into an electronic circuit, either analog or digital and thus it is suggested that software environment used for electronic circuit simulation can also be adapted to support biological systems. This paper (“Application of Electrical Design Automation in Biological Context”) was in fact presented on the evening of the second day as the best paper of the Academic Track, as seen and voted by the audience.

Another fascinating part of CDNLive EMEA was the two keynote speeches given by Tom Beckley who addressed the topic of complexity and safety challenges and Ulf Ewaldsson, the CTO of Ericsson who spoke about “Paving the Way for 5G” and the great effects he believes 5G will have on not only industry but every-day life as well. Nearly all attendees of CDNLive EMEA were present for the keynotes and even with more than 800 people attending the conference, it is safe to say that both speeches captured the audience’s undivided attention.  

CDNLive EMEA is also a great opportunity for socializing, as it can’t be strictly business all day long. We were given a chance to meet most of our Lead Institution professors and hear all about the interesting research each professor and his/her team are working on back at their universities. On the second evening, there were a multitude of events taking place: an excellent buffet dinner, an exciting go-cart race, a live music band, best paper award event and of course a screening of the football match of local team Bayern Munich – so the evening enjoyably flew by.

Finally, we had a chance to meet up with many past interns from the Cadence Academic Network and arranged a group photo with old and current interns, as well as the bosses of course! In a sense this was an opportunity for a “reunion” where many past colleagues got a chance to catch up and also meet the people now carrying on their great work.