EDAC has a series of seminars for emerging companies with Jim Hogan. Jim has been in EDA since, like, forever. First at National, then at Cadence, then at Artisan (now ARM) and then as an investor first at Telos (Cadence's VC arm) and more recently on his own at Vista Ventures. He has been involved with many EDA and semiconductor startups. I think his mixture of technology knowledge and investor/financial knowledge is second to none. I've worked with Jim for many years, first for my time at Cadence when he and I and Ted Vucurevich made up the Office of Strategic Technology (sort of CTO for Cadence but split in three). Then at Virtutech we persuaded Telos to invest in us (an investment Cadence held even after the dissolution of Telos) and more recently on a number of consulting projects.

You are in San Francisco for DAC and you want a coffee. OK, if your booth duty is 5 minutes away you pretty much have to take the Moscone coffee. Tastes good, hot, has caffeine. As Meatloaf used to sing (showing my age here) two out of three ain't bad.

But if you want more there are several places that you should try and experience. Yes, there are Starbucks all over the city, one on 4th Street just by Moscone Center, from where Steve Jobs famously ordered 2000 lattes to go during the iPhone launch. There is also Peets coffee everywhere (founded in 1966) and who sold Starbucks their beans for their first year or two of operation.

One DAC panel session that I am looking forward to attending is the Chevy Volt Teardown. This takes place at 1.30-2.30pm on Tuesday June 5th at the DAC pavilion (aka booth 310). Al Speier of Munro Associates will be talking about a teardown that they did at Munro Associates where he is a senior associate. Is that enough "associates" in one sentence? Unfortunately they won't actually be tearing down a Chevy Volt on the show floor. That would be a clever trick in an hour for a start. But you can see Al do it in just 4 minutes on a time-lapse video.

Any companies exhibiting at DAC, today is the last day to get discounted services from GES. The price goes up tomorrow. You must enter everything on the GES Expresso System. San Francisco unions are expensive enough so get the discount ($107 per hour for unskilled labor, really).

I’m sometimes asked where I take visitors to San Francisco. What would I recommend you do as a tourist here? What inside information to us locals know that tourists do not?

See the Golden Gate Bridge. The best way is not to drive there or get a taxi, but to rent a bicycle (lots of places on that side of the city, try Googling “blazing saddles”) and cycle across the bridge. You can then go down the hill into Sausalito. There is a regular ferry back from Sausalito to San Francisco and you can take your bike on it. Or you can keep going to Tiburon and get the ferry back from there.

Each year at DAC the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA) sponsors a lunchtime talk. This year Mark Horowitz, chairman of Stanford University's Electrical Engineering Department will offer his views on Digital/Analog design.

The talk is at lunchtime on Tuesday June 5th. It is in room 303 in the Moscone Center at 11.45 until 1.30pm. Any DAC attendees are welcome but it is on a first-come first-served basis and ususally these lunches fill up completely so I'd advise you to get there a bit earlier. Lunch is served.