Design Automation Conference


The Design Automation Conference, or DAC, is an annual event, a combination of a technical conference and a trade show, both specializing in electronic design automation.
DAC is the oldest and largest conference in EDA, started in 1964. It grew out of the SHARE design automation workshop. Its originators Marie Pistilli and Pasquale Pistilli were honored by the EDA community. Pat received the highest honor in EDA industry, the Phil Kaufman Award, for this effort and Marie was honored by having an award established in her name, Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award, known as the Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Award since 2016.
Up until the mid-'70s, DAC had sessions on all types of design automation, including mechanical and architectural. After that, for all intents and purposes, only topics concerned with electronic design have been included. Also until the mid-'70s, DAC was strictly a technical conference. Then a few companies started to request space to show their products, and within a few years the trade show portion of DAC became the main focus of the event. The first commercial DAC was held in June 1984. As a rough metric of the importance of the trade show portion, about 6,300 people attended DAC in 2018, whereas ICCAD, at least as strong technically but with no trade show, drew perhaps a tenth as many attendees.
Other similar conferences are the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design, or ICCAD, Design Automation and Test in Europe, Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference, and International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design.
Over the past few years the conference location has been alternating among San Diego, Austin and San Francisco. The conference is usually held in June.
DAC is sponsored by two professional societies: ACM-SIGDA and IEEE-CEDA, in technical cooperation with IEEE-SSCS. DAC is organized by hundreds of volunteer committee members from EDA companies and academia.

Recent history

The table below shows the edition, year, location and the general chair of recent DAC events.
EditionYearLocationConference CenterGeneral Chair
26th1989Las Vegas, NevadaLas Vegas Convention CenterDon Thomas
27th1990Orlando, FloridaOrange County Convention CenterRichard Smith
28th1991San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterA. Richard Newton
29th1992Anaheim, CaliforniaAnaheim Convention CenterDaniel Schweikert
30th1993Dallas, TexasKay Bailey Hutchison Convention CenterAlfred Dunlop
31st1994San Diego, CaliforniaSan Diego Convention CenterMichael Lorenzetti
32nd1995San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterBryan Preas
33rd1996Las Vegas, NevadaLas Vegas Convention CenterThomas Pennino
34th1997Anaheim, CaliforniaAnaheim Convention CenterEllen Yoffa
35th1998San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterBasant Chawla
36th1999New Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans Morial Convention CenterMary Jane Irwin
37th2000Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles Convention CenterGiovanni De Micheli
38th2001Las Vegas, NevadaLas Vegas Convention CenterJan M. Rabaey
39th2002New Orleans, LouisianaNew Orleans Morial Convention CenterBryan Ackland
40th2003Anaheim, CaliforniaAnaheim Convention CenterIan Getreu
41st2004San Diego, CaliforniaSan Diego Convention CenterSharad Malik
42nd2005Anaheim, CaliforniaAnaheim Convention CenterWilliam H. Joyner Jr.
43rd2006San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterEllen Sentovich
44th2007San Diego, CaliforniaSan Diego Convention CenterSteven Levitan
45th2008Anaheim, CaliforniaAnaheim Convention CenterLimor Fix
46th2009San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterAndrew Kahng
47th2010Anaheim, CaliforniaAnaheim Convention CenterSachin Sapatnekar
48th2011San Diego, CaliforniaSan Diego Convention CenterLeon Stok
49th2012San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterPatrick Groeneveld
50th2013Austin, TexasAustin Convention CenterYervant Zorian
51st2014San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterSoha Hassoun
52nd2015San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterAnne Cirkel
53rd2016Austin, TexasAustin Convention CenterChuck Alpert
54th2017Austin, TexasAustin Convention CenterMac McNamara
55th2018San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterSharon Hu
56th2019Las Vegas, NevadaLas Vegas Convention CenterRob Aitken
57th2020Virtual due to COVID-19-Zhuo Li
58th2021San Francisco, CaliforniaMoscone CenterHarry Foster