JUNE 11, 1992
In the past 28 years, the Design Automation Conference (DAC) has grown from a small design-automation workshop to the premier showcase of new software and technology. While only 167 people attended the first show back in 1963 to discuss limited topics, such as routers, the number of DAC attendees and its scope of interest have risen dramatically...
Over the past two to three years, DAC's emphasis has shifted. It has moved from a show where companies hail blockbuster announcements to one in which incremental advances take the spotlight: better tool integration, improved data and design-management capabilities, and increased standards adherence are the themes. (Technology Analysis, p. 42)
Flashback > 25 Years AgoJUNE 7, 1977
The magazine-loaded, Digital Tape Recorder has matured to the point where you have too many choices. The line-up includes cassettes, cartridges, single-track or multiples, drives of various kinds, and at least 10 encoding schemes. And rather loose specifications for cartridge and cassette recorders cloud the picture even more.
Probably your most important decision in specifying any storage device involves capacity. With cassette and cartridge recorders, the problem of deciding is compounded by the real difference between actual and theoretical capacity.
Although the theoretical storage capacity (bit density × tape length) for a cartridge or a cassette seems adequate at first glance, a large part of the "capacity" can be eaten up by starting and stopping. (Focus, p. 66)
Flashback > 40 Years AgoJUNE 7, 1962
Improved microwave circuit designs highlighted the technical sessions at the 1962 National Symposium of the Professional Group on Microwave Theory and Techniques. Improvements were reported across the board in filters, amplifiers, limiters, switches and in noise-measurement techniques.
The sessions, at the National Bureau of Standards Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., offered a well-balanced fare of theory and design techniques. Complementing the device improvements were generalizations of perturbation methods for power measurements.
In his paper on interdigital bandpass filters, Dr. George Matthei, Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Calif., described design procedures for narrow and wide bandwidths. (News, p. 8)
