Minutes of the IFIP Working Group Meeting

Munich, ICM, March 7th, 2006

Present: J.Becker, D.Borrione, K.Choi, N.Dutt, R.Ernst, H.Eveking, G.Hellestrand, M.Imai, A.Jerraya, W.Nebel, H.Ofek, F.Rammig, R.Reis, P.Schwarz, L.M.Silveira, E.Villar, F.Wagner, J.Willis, W.Wolf

Apologies: E.Aas, E.Clarke, C.Delgado-Kloos, J.Damore, M.Fujita, W.Grass, R.Hartenstein, S.Johnson, T.Margaria, G.Milne, K.Muller-Glaser, P.Paulin, W.Rosenstiel, D.Sciuto, A.Yamada

Delegates: S.Rusakov (to A.Stempkovsky)

Invited guests: S.Mir (TIMA), D.Soudris (U.Patras)

1. Introduction of new member

Juergen Becker (University of Karlsruhe, Germany) made a detailed and interesting presentation of his research and education activities, which were very much appreciated by the WG members. This presentation concluded the formal procedure for his nomination as a new WG member. His CV had been already considered during a previous electronic consultation to all WG members, which resulted in a unanimous approval of his nomination.

2. VLSI-SoC'2006

Salvador Mir (TIMA, France) gave a report on the organization of VLSI-SoC'2006, to be held in Nice in October 2006.

The Call for Papers has been distributed to 5,000 addresses from the TIMA mailing list and 1,000 additional addresses from the VLSI-SoC'05 mailing list.

Giovanni De Micheli, the program chair, will appoint 18 topic chairs. A PC meeting shall be held in Lausanne in May. A PC meeting shall be held also right after the conference, for selecting the best papers for the book. An on-line evaluation of the presentations during the event will also help in the selection.

IEEE CEDA (Council on EDA) expressed its intention in co-sponsoring the VLSI-SoC series with financial involvement, with up to 20% participation. F.Rammig expressed concerns, since VLSI-SoC is the WG 10.5 flagship conference and the main source of revenue for the WG. S.Mir explained that the daily rates per participant will be paid anyway to IFIP, and the 20% of CEDA will come from the organizer's (TIMA's) profit. The WG approved the 20% financial participation of CEDA. However, the event will maintain its current denomination "IFIP Conference on VLSI-SoC", without reference to IEEE.

It has been discussed whether papers could be made available through IEEE Xplorer. This is good for the event visibility and its impact factor. The WG approved to propose to CEDA that all papers would be made available through the IEEE Digital Library, but the book with the best papers will be still published by Springer.

3. VLSI-SoC'2008

Dimitrios Soudris (University of Patras, Greece) made a brief report on plans for the 2008 edition of VLSI-SoC, to be held in Rhode Island. Christian Piguet (CSEM, CH) and a researcher from U.Patras (still to be nominated) will be PC chairs.

4. SIG-CHARME

D.Borrione gave a report on SIG-CHARME activities.

CHARME'05 has been held in Saarbrücken, Germany, in October 2005. There were 74 submitted papers, from which 21 full papers and 19 short papers have been selected for presentation and publication in the proceedings (by Springer).

The next edition of CHARME is still open. There are proposals for a merge between CHARME and FMCAD. While FMCAD shows vitality, there is very weak involvement of European researchers with CHARME. Because of this situation, D.Borrione expressed her concerns about the future of SIG-CHARME. While FMCAD opened a company for managing the event, there are problems in Europe regarding bank accounts for managing event funds.

5. New Working Group on Embedded Systems

F.Rammig reported on the approval of the new WG on Embedded Systems by TC10, originating from the SIG on Embedded Systems, which was attached to the three active WGs of TC10. The WG shall be identified as WG 10.2.

The first chair of WG 10.2 will be Wayne Wolf. Members for the new WG are being attracted from the US (by W.Wolf), Europe (by F.Rammig, mainly from the ARTIST network of excellence), and Asia (by M.Kim, from Korea). Many members will be also inherited from the three WGs of TC10. It has been expressed that a double membership between WG 10.2 and WG 10.5 is welcome.

The creation of WG 10.2 will be formally presented to the IFIP General Assembly in next August. Aims and Scope of the WG must be still defined.

The inauguration event of WG 10.2 will be in Braga, Portugal, in October 2006, during the DIPES conference. Organizers plan that at least half of the papers shall be invited ones, presented by the WG members.

W.Wolf expressed that a strong cooperation with IEEE Computer Society and ACM is very interesting for the new WG.

6. IFIP Council meeting

F.Rammig reported on the IFIP Council meeting, held just before DATE.

He reported that TC10 currently owns 68,000 euros. 2,8 Keuros have been earned in 2005 from book royalties and 11 Keuros from proceedings. TC10 spent more than 10 Keuros in 2005, more than required by IFIP, and must spend again around 10 Keuros in 2006.

F.Rammig reported on concerns regarding the future of IFIP. A strategic discussion is going on. As a possible way of strengthening IFIP, F.Rammig proposes that individual membership for members of member societies should be possible. This would be a clear benefit for members of societies from small countries. This would also increase IFIP visibility in these countries. F.Rammig expressed that IFIP should not compete with its member societies, but rather cooperate with them.

The IFIP political role has been emphasized, for instance through the organization of the WITFOR conference and through its efforts against the "digital divide" between rich and poor countries.

7. Requests for co-sponsorship

The WG discussed the requests for co-sponsorship of the 2006 editions of the UIC (Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing) and ATC (Autonomic and Trusted Computing) conferences.

The co-sponsorship of UIC, without financial involvement, has been approved for 2006. This must be interpreted only as an "in-cooperation status" and not as a direct involvement or responsibility of the WG. The conference shall not carry the identification of IFIP in its denomination. A report on the conference shall be requested afterwards. The approval regards only the 2006 edition, since members considered that future requests should be directed to the new WG 10.2 (on Embedded Systems).

As of ATC, it has been decided that the conference organizers should direct the request to WG 10.4 (on Dependable Systems), since the conference subject is not directly related to the scope of WG 10.5.

8. Next meetings

The next WG meetings will be held in San Francisco, in July 2006, together with the DAC conference, and in Nice, in October 2006, together with the VLSI-SoC conference.