After a long summer break and time for a blogging platform upgrade, The Standards Game is back in action. My blog may have had a quiet period, but the world of standards kept on turning. It’s hard to believe that Fall is here already and so many interesting events took place during The Standards Game’s vacation.

Here are a few highlights of what happened over the past few months.

Accellera and OSCI announced their plans to merge into a single organization. The new organization will combine the experience and resources of both bodies to broaden its benefit to the electronics industry. System-level design – and the standards that support it – is an integral part of System-on-Chip (SoC) design. A single standards-setting organization that addresses the interoperability requirements from the industry.

There was significant movement in the low-power standards arena. Si2 announced that they contributed relevant parts of the CPF 2.0 specification to the IEEE P1801 (UPF) working group, and  Cadence is also participating in the working group. “Convergence” is a term we’ve talked about for at least 4 years. I hope it will finally become a reality.

The Design Automation Standards Committee (DASC) held its annual election for officers. Each office is a two-year team, with two officers being elected each year. This year the positions of Chair and Vice-Chair were up for election. Stan Krolikowski was re-elected as DASC chair, and Yatin Trivedi was elected as Vice-Chair, Kathy Werner remains as Secretary and Victor Berman remains as Treasurer. (BTW, renewing and new members of DASC should pay their annuals dues before the end of 2011. At 40 $USD, it’s a bargain.)

Planning for DVCon 2012, which will include the latest in Accellera/OSCI standards, technical papers, industry-leader panels, and methodology tutorials, is well underway. Paper and panel selections are being finalized by the Techical Program Committee. Aart de Geus, CEO of Synopsys, will be the keynote speaker. (I’m the General Chair.)

Finally, the annual IEEE election was held and I was voted in as the 2012 President-Elect of the IEEE Standards Association. I will be the IEEE-SA President in 2013-14, at which time I will also have a seat on the Board of the IEEE itself. It’s going to be a great experience, I’m truly honored, and I’ll work hard to keep and increase the effectiveness of IEEE standards.

As always, I welcome your observations, ideas, and questions as we continue to participate in the standards game.