33rd International Conference on VLSI Design, 19th International Conference on Embedded Design was a fantastic & remarkable success at Bengaluru, India
The 33rd International Conference on VLSI Design, 19th International Conference on Embedded Design was held in Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India, from January 4th to January 8th, 2020. The major focus of the conference was on Industry leadership, govt policies and academia research in the field of VLSI and embedded systems. This global platform brought together nearly 1800+ people from Academia, Industry, Entrepreneurs, Industry Bodies and Govt. Officials from worldwide ecosystem. This distinctive platform demonstrated the state-of-art in technology, futuristic researches and views from VC farms on how nascent technologies can attract funding towards making it to big.
The theme of 2020 edition of conference is chosen as Connecting Intelligent Systems to New Age Transistors. Through the platform of VLSI Design & Embedded Systems conference, the organizers envisioned academia, industry, entrepreneur and government to converge through deliberations on state-of-art technology in Nanotechnology, VLSI Design, EDA and Embedded systems and pave the way forward towards creating enabling new technologies towards a faster and smarter connected world.
Talking about the conference and motivation the Co General Chairs Sumit Goswami (Qualcomm) and Veeresh Shetty (Mentor – A Siemens Business) said: “The Indian technology and services ecosystem has been a catalyst for global transformation delivering innovative solutions and business impact enabling them to become more competitive. India’s story is unique, exceptional and inspirational. This involved building deep capabilities and competencies, new & innovative business and delivery models and a business strategy to harness investments both within and outside the organization.”
The fundamental methodology in designing the conference program was to connecting attendees to modern researches in core technologies followed by exposure to futuristic fundamental researches which is going to drive the definition of modern and improved life. As first step the conference organized six full-day tutorials in first couple of days of the conference. The tutorials are organized and presented by academic experts on six different themes in the field of EDA, Artificial Intelligence, Power Management, Embedded Systems, Security and Testability/Resiliency. These tutorials were presented by 19 leaders from worldwide industry and academia. The sessions ran full and conference registration desk recorded whooping 650+ attendees in those 6 tutorials.
The technical conference was designed carefully. This year recorded huge number of submissions with high quality of papers. Technical program chairs of the conference Dr. David Atienza (EPFL Switzerland), Dr. Subhasish Mitra (Stanford University, USA) & Dr. Manan Suri (IIT Delhi, India) said: “This year we received a total of 306 initial submissions, which were reviewed by 136 Technical Program Committee Members (from multiple countries across the world), assisted by more than 150 secondary reviewers, for a total of more than 1,100 reviews. Each paper received multiple reviews, and was discussed by program committee members, before a final acceptance decision was taken.” As a result of this due diligence 41 papers were presented in 19 different tracks and 43 posters were displayed during the conference. There were 19 invited talks were also there which added another attraction to the technical tracks.
In keeping with the theme, the conference presents keynotes and plenaries by leaders from academia and industry. Examples include the banquet keynote on Brains and Computers by Dr. Jan Rabaey (UC Berkeley and IMEC), keynotes on topics ranging from AI to nanotechnologies and quantum computing by Dr. Stefan Jockusch (Siemens), Suk Lee (TSMC), Dr. Max Shulaker (MIT), Dr. Yvain Thonnart (CEA LETI), Dr. Baaziz Achour (Qualcomm), Dheemanth Nagaraj (Intel). Industrial plenary session speeches on AI and VLSI by Hsien-Hsin Sean Lee (Facebook), Nishant Patil (Google) and Song Yao (Xilinx), and the plenary fireside chat on VLSI in India led by Dr. Partha Pratim Chakrabarti (IIT Kharagpur). These sessions generated immense interest on attendees. As a result, every session were extremely interactive and crowded.
The connection to the industry was also equally strong. The conference hosted one Industry Forum which was divided in 3 tracks: AI/ML, 5G/Wireless, IoT. In each track there was distinguished professor who introduced the topic from academic standpoint followed by perspectives shared by one lead from startup ecosystem and established multinationals. 9 leaders shared the stage in industry forum and delivered powerful talks on relevant subjects. Talking about startup forum the conference organized a Startup Forum where a panel discussion among venture capitalists, CEO of startups, leaders from multinationals and govt officials happened focusing best practices to have successful startups. The conference also organized User Design Tracks where professionals from industry submitted their papers. This year we have received 56 submission out of which 11 were presented as oral presentations and 13 were presented as posters. The exhibit floor of the conference was roaring as 26 companies participated in the exhibit floor with cutting edge demonstration of the product and technologies. Some of the notable names were Qualcomm, Intel, Xilinx, Samsung, Synopsys, Cadence, Western Digital, Microchip, Mentor Graphics etc. Every exhibitor was thrilled to have the attendance.
The foster local academia and ecosystem in the conference committee took two major steps. Firstly 175 fellowships were given to faculties and students from all over India. Apart from that the conference committee organized a Design Contest session for students where ARM based development kits were given along with right set of trainings. Students prototyped their ideas impacting social life. Finally few ideas were chosen as wining ideas. Winners were connected to industries for confirmed 6 months internship along with cash prizes. These efforts helped in boosting interest on VLSI and Embedded Systems.
The complete journey of the conference was ecstatic. At the end the team achieved its goal of connecting everybody towards innovation in the field of VLSI and Embedded System. After the successful finish of the conference super satisfied Veeresh Shetty, General Chair - VLSI2020 Conference said, “We flagged off the decade with VLSI2020 by bringing together experts, leaders and community-achievers with thought provoking sessions, sharing their knowledge and nurturing the talent”. Added Sumit Goswami, General Chair - VLSI2020 Conference “This conference was a big-step towards providing a conducive atmosphere between the industry and academia to enable, encourage and develop innovation. It will also catapult evolution of technology to the next frontier by bringing in the best in innovation”. Team is all set now to host next edition of the conference in Guwahati, India in the month of January 2021.
Sumit Goswami and Veeresh Shetty, General Co-Chairs, VLSI Design Conference