1. New member

Luis Miguel Silveira, who had been already invited to become a member of the WG, presented himself, giving an overview of his past and current activities and research interests. His admission as new member has been approved unanimously.

2. SIG-CHARME

The WG unanimously confirmed the approval of the creation of SIG-CHARME, the Special Interest Group on Formal Design and Verification Methods for Correct Hardware-like Systems. The Statutes and Bylaws of SIG-CHARME had been already sent by electronic mail to all WG members for consideration, and an informal electronic voting had been performed, resulting on an unanimous approval. The proposal will now be sent for consideration of TC 10.

3. SIG-DL

There was no report on the creation of a new SIG on Design Languages, which would replace the previous SIG on VHDL. This subject will not be brought again to consideration, until a concrete proposal is submitted to the WG.

4. Roadmaps

F.Wagner reported on discussions at previous meetings, regarding the development of an IFIP Roadmap on Design Technologies. He also reported on the efforts of F.Rammig, who obtained from the european project ITEA a preliminary commitment to implement the needed procedures to such development during a next WG meeting to be held in Montreal, in parallel with the DIPES workshop.

P.Schwarz supported the idea of an IFIP roadmap, considering that other roadmaps are mainly developed from an industry's perspective and do not have a strong Computer Science view.

R.Hartenstein also supported the idea, considering that Education is not adequately covered by other roadmaps.

A.Pawlak considered that this would be a good time point for an IFIP roadmap, to be developed as a project in the context of the 6^th European Framework.

N.Dutt expressed his concern with the development of a roadmap, which is a formidable task. He suggested that the WG could instead act as a consulting body to other roadmaps. He also suggested that the SIGs could be used for this consulting role.

It has been also suggested that an IFIP roadmap activity could be restricted to educational aspects, thus complementing other roadmaps.

There was no consensus on a concrete position to be taken by the WG. Concern has been expressed that not too many members would be present at the meeting in Montreal, and that would be a major obstacle to the roadmap development. Members at the meeting could not nominate a person who would be responsible for a task force that should lead the initiative.

It has been left to the WG chair to analyze possible ways to conduct this subject and to propose alternatives to the WG.

6. PhD forum

The WG had already approved, on its previous meeting, the realization of a PhD forum as part of the next VLSI conference edition.

N.Dutt reported on the very successful organization of the PhD forum of SIGDA. Students bring posters and have the opportunity to discuss their work with a broad audience and disseminate ideas that have not been yet published. Many researchers, other than students, come to see the posters. The event is organized as a 2-hours session during DAC.

E.Villar asked whether the WG should select a special subject for the PhD forum.

7. Aims and Scope

F.Wagner presented the result of the survey of research interests, conducted among all WG members. Based on this survey, he also proposed a new text for the WG Aims, as well as a definition of the WG Scope.

It has been decided that the proposed Aims and Scope will be circulated among members and put on the WG web site. Contributions will be gathered for a later decision on the final text.

8. Strategy plan

The WG discussed plans for future technical activities, for instance to be developed during next meetings.

K.Mueller-Glaser suggested a technical discussion on high-level specification languages.

A.Pawlak pointed out that, due to the very broad scope of the WG, it is difficult to find technical themes that would be of interest to the majority of the members. C.Delgado-Kloos added that the WG could be splitted into smaller WGs. Other members pointed out that the SIGs could be the right place to organize technical activities, while the WG would remain only as an administrative instance above them.

D.Borrione emphasized that members must have a personal interest on a technical activity to be motivated to take part on it. She proposed that a workshop on Education, where members would interchange didactic experiences and teaching material, could be a good initiative. Other members supported this proposal. It has been remembered that R.Hartenstein had already proposed, in a previous meeting, that a workshop on Education would be a worthwile initiative to be launched by the WG. He suggested that the workshop could discuss the impact of new design and implementation technologies on regular CS, CE, and EE curricula.

A.Pawlak suggested again that the WG could propose a large project in the context of the 6^th European Framework. He pointed out that 2002 would be the right time window for such a proposal.

9. Next meetings

According to a decision taken at the previous meeting in Montpellier, the next meeting should take place in Montreal, in parallel with the DIPES workshop and the IFIP World Congress. Concerns have been expressed that this meeting would attract very few members, as in Pirenopolis and Montpellier.

It has been suggested that meetings should always take place during large conferences, such as DAC and DATE.

It has been decided that an immediate electronic voting should be conducted among all members, considering three alternatives: DAC (New Orleans, June 2002), DIPES (Montreal, August 2002), and FDL (Marseille, September 2002). Each member shall state to which of these conferences he/she will most probably come. Depending on the voting, one or more meetings could be scheduled for these conferences, considering that different meetings could attract very different participants.

The meeting in Montreal would be anyway maintained, if the roadmap development activity is confirmed.

It has been proposed that meetings should always include a technical activity. For Montreal, this would be the roadmap development. For DAC'2002, because of the very tight schedule, the meeting could be only organizational. It has been suggested that a Workshop on Education could be held as part of a meeting to take place at DATE'2003.