Daniel Nenni

This week San Francisco is home of the 46^th annual Design Automation Conference, which I blogged about in the Green Design Concept and the 46^th Annual DAC.  DAC, as we affectionately call it, is the premier conference for modern semiconductor design enablement. Please introduce yourself if you see me on the floor, or at the Denali Night Live party, it would be great to meet you.

Being a Bay Area native, San Francisco is one of my favorite cities, my favorite location for DAC, and home to one of my favorite tourist attractions, Alcatraz Island. Even more interesting is escaping from Alcatraz, swimming from Alcatraz to San Francisco, which I have done twice!

San Francisco is normally one of the best attended DAC locations, but I honestly don’t know what to expect this year. Semiconductor companies around the world have extra tight travel restrictions due to the recession and may send a fraction of the people to DAC than previous years. Time constraints are also tight due to reduced staffing (layoffs) and increased time to market (tape out) pressures.

The traditionally free Monday was replaced by $50 Monday, only to be returned to free Monday, sponsored by the EDA Consortium (EDAC).  Free Monday is a DAC standard, a right of free passage for students, engineers, sales, and marketing people who are searching for jobs and gathering free gifts. Free Monday also bumps the DAC attendance numbers disproportionately, allowing higher exhibit and advertising fees.

So, my guess is that advanced registration was lower than expected and rather than admit a serious blunder and lose marketing face the DAC committee cut a PR deal with EDAC. Alternate theory: EDAC is so flush with cash they ran out of ways to spend it!  Even more interesting is the announcement on DeepChip that Atrenta, Denali, and Springsoft are giving away 600 free exhibit passes!?!? Marketing budget is that easy to come by eh guys? Just being snarky here of course, probably the best marketing gesture DAC has ever seen, well done.

So the real question is: Why would I swim in freezing, shark infested, current laden water for 1.5 miles? Okay, no sharks but there are HUGE sea lions that try to mate with other sea lions or swimmers in wet suits, which will make you wish you were eaten by a shark. I did the swim to win a bet of course, and to confirm my personal belief that no prisoners successfully escaped from Alcatraz. The water was VERY cold, even wearing a ¼ inch wet suit my legs were numb by the time I hit the marina (40 minutes). The current is VERY strong, I swam as hard as I could heading directly towards the Bay Bridge (due South) and ended up landing inside the Golden Gate bridge (due West). It was part of the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon so I was surrounded by other swimmers and boats, but still, the experience makes me seriously doubt that Clint Eastwood or the other Alcatraz escapees made the swim to SFO.