SNUG San Jose 2007
Trip Report

The Santa Clara Convention Center hosted the seventeenth annual SNUG San Jose on April 2 - 4 in California. Over 1500 users took in a record 100+ technical presentations, of which over half were user presentations. The highly-rated technical program is a direct reflection of the contribution from Synopsys users who help shape the content year after year.

SNUG's new Technical Chair, Andy Copper, ARCH Design Solutions, officially opened the show and welcomed the crowd on Monday morning. The morning continued with Synopsys CEO and Chairman of the Board, Aart de Geus, who discussed business and development trends and gave some perspective into Synopsys and the EDA industry today.

With 35 presentations delivered on day 1, Synopsys R&D Night provided a great ending to the day, giving attendees an opportunity to chat with other users and Synopsys R&D, support and product experts in a very informal setting.

Tuesday opened with an energetic speech by Steve Squyres, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University and Principal Scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Missions. The ethusiasm and passion of Dr Squyres captivated everyone in the audience and it was the buzz of day 2.

To compliment Aart de Geus' keynote and the R&D panels, SNUG hosted a new series of panels with Synopsys VPs and GMs. These panels were created to give attendees access and input to executive, development and support experts for the tools they use. In addition to these panels, two visionary sessions were held; one on verification and one on low power. These sessions gave attendees an opportunity to hear from Synopsys scientists on the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in these key areas of the industry.

The Interoperability Fair capped off day 2, where attendees had access to over 20 EDA companies who are working with Synopsys to help drive industry solutions to solve electronic design challenges.

Day 3 continued with more user presentations, Synopsys tutorials and panels. A highlight of the day was the user's poster session, where attendees got a chance to speak with the authors of all the user presentations. Of course, SNUG would be nothing without the exceptional contribution of Synopsys users. Awards were presented on day 3, where the top presentations and technical papers were rewarded. We're proud to highlight them below...congratulations winners!

First Place, Best Paper * and Technical Committee Award - Honorable Mention ** Where Have All the Phases Gone? Using Multiclock Propagation in PrimeTime Paul Zimmer - Zimmer Design Services * award based on attendee voting ** award based on technical committee voting
Second Place, Best Paper * and Technical Committee Award - Honorable Mention ** Gotcha Again--More Subtleties in the Verilog and SystemVerilog Standards that Every Engineer Should Know Stuart Sutherland - Sutherland HDL, Inc.; Don Mills - LCDM Engineering; Chris Spear - Synopsys, Inc. * award based on attendee voting ** award based on technical committee voting
Third Place, Best Paper * Don't Panic! What to do when Formality Doesn't Give You the "VERIFICATION SUCCEEDED" Message on the First Try Leah Clark – Broadcom Corp.; Matt Dittrich - Synopsys, Inc. * award based on attendee voting
Best First-Time Presenter * How to Verify and Integrate Mixed Signal Third-Party IP Steven M. Waldstein - Tundra Semiconductor * award based on attendee voting
Technical Committee Award ** (no photo available) Implementation of an AHB Bus Subsystem with SystemVerilog Eliseu Filho - Starport Systems; Jim Maryoung - Synopsys, Inc. ** award based on technical committee voting