DAC '09 for the Specmaniac

The following are the "must see" items for Specmaniacs lucky enough to get travel authorization for DAC 2009 (and/or who scored a cheap ticket on Priceline.com for a spur of the moment "vacation" to scenic San Francisco).

1 - Specman in the Cadence Main Booth (#3751, North Hall)
Given Specman's long support for ESL and TLM flows, Specman is featured in the TLM-driven Design&Verification suite demo. In short, for the 15% of Specman users already using an ESL and/or TLM flow this is the perfect opportunity to see what's new. For the 85% of Specman users still using RTL for DUTs, this is your chance to see the benefits that the other 15% of your colleagues have been enjoying. (Related note: don't forget to sign-up for the free Tuesday lunch panel on "SystemC & TLM-Driven Design Replacing RTL?")

Of course, Specman is a key part of the Enterprise Verification demo. Without giving anything away, Specman is playing a supporting role in this demo, meaning Specman is a foundational technology for much of what you will see. BUT, it's not a deep dive on Specman-related specifics (like we show at ClubT's since there is too much ground to cover)

Logistical & suite sign-up details are posted here: http://www.cadence.com/dac2009/pages/demo.aspx

2 - eRM 3.0, er, OVM e in the OVM booth (#3450, North Hall)
A major theme of OVM is its multi-language support for the same basic architecture whether you are using e, SystemVerilog, SystemC, or a mix. At the booth OVM experts will be on hand to talk technology, plus their will be quite a few user and OVM partner company presentations on their experiences with OVM. In particular, Team Specman believes the following presentations will be of interest to Specmaniacs:

OVM Roadmap and Update -- 10am - 11am every day of the show

OVM vs. VMM Comparison -- Tuesday 4 pm – 4:30 pmIntegration of VMM sub modules into OVM – a step by step walkthrough (presented by Mirafra)-- Tuesday 1pm-2pm and an encore presentation Wednesday 5pm-6pm

Cocktail and Networking Event with the OVM Creators and Experts -- Tuesday 4:30 p.m. - 6 p.m.

AMIQ presents: OVM Support in DVT Eclipse -- Wednesday 1pm-2pm
(Recall the e coding support in DVT we blogged about back in May, and the 5 minute online demo of this IDE)

Here is a detailed schedule of all the OVM presentations: http://www.ovmworld.org/tradeshows.php

3 - The User Tracks on Tuesday July 28 through Wednesday July 30
There are a lot of great papers in the NEW DAC "User Track". In short, this paper-centric forum is like a marriage of DesignCon and DVCon packed into a 3 day series of events: http://www.dac.com/46th/UTpromo.html

Naturally, we expect Specmaniacs to gravitate toward the functional verification sessions. To save you time in selecting a session, use this rule of thumb: if you see the name "Jason Andrews" in the presenters list or on a panel, just go to that paper/panel. Really -- just do it. As anyone who follows Jason's blog knows, you WILL learn something of value.

Also: be sure not to miss the Poster Session and Ice Cream Social from on Wednesday from 1:30pm - 3:00pm

4 - Ecosystem Partners booth (#4200, North Hall)
Specmaniacs will be on the panel "Implementing an open, metrics-driven verification environment" on Wednesday, July 29, 1:30-2:30pm. The panel is moderated by EDA chronicler Richard Goering, and no registration is needed for the Ecosystem booth panels -- just drop in and enjoy.

5 - See other Specmaniacs! (Including the original Specmaniac ...)
By all means please seek out the following Cadence Specmaniacs:

* Distinguished Engineer and fellow blogger Mike Stellfox

* Ziv Binyamini, VP of Front End Solutions (includes all of verification)

* Specman Product Marketing Director (and Team Specman coordinator) Joe Hupcey III (Joe's blog, and feel free to follow him on Twitter via @jhupcey)

* Last but not least ... The original Specmaniac, Yoav Hollander, CTO of the Verification Group, and a founder of e/Specman, will be at DAC. Yoav loves to talk to end users who are on the front lines of verification, and in particular he would like to hear about how you are working to improve your debugging efficiency, and your stimulus and constraint development methodologies. Of course, Yoav is also open to talk about any aspect of verification under the sun, so if you are going to DAC please contact Team Specman offline to arrange a meeting. Alternatively, you will be able to find Yoav walking in & out of any and all exhibits and papers related to functional verification.

See you next week!
Team Specman