Accellera Systems Initiative to Honor Martin Barnasconi with 2018 Leadership Award

Barnasconi will be recognized for his dedication to the advancement of the SystemC ecosystem and growth of standards dissemination in Europe

Elk Grove, Calif., June 19, 2018 -- Accellera Systems Initiative (Accellera), the electronics industry organization focused on the creation and adoption of electronic design automation (EDA) and intellectual property (IP) standards, announced today that Martin Barnasconi is the recipient of the seventh annual Accellera Leadership Award. The award recognizes the vision, leadership and contribution to standards development, governance and promotional activities of an Accellera member on behalf of the organization. The award will be presented to Martin at the 55th Design Automation Conference (DAC) during the Accellera Breakfast and Technical Panel on Tuesday, June 26th.

“Martin has been instrumental in advancing the SystemC standardization efforts not only in Europe but across the globe,” stated Lu Dai, Accellera Chair.  “He led the development and release of the SystemC AMS standard in Accellera, successfully delivering it to the IEEE and chairing the efforts resulting in IEEE 1666.1.  He spearheaded the expansion of DVCon into Europe, and is a co-founder of the successful SystemC Evolution Day. Martin’s leadership and guidance has helped to grow standards development and education worldwide, and he has had a profound impact on the industry.  We are grateful for his dedication, and I am proud to honor Martin with this award.”

“I am extremely honored to receive this distinguished award from Accellera,” stated Martin Barnasconi.  “I have enjoyed working with many in the industry over the years that share a passion for standards development and adoption.  I am very happy to see the growth and participation in Europe as the industry collaborates to advance EDA standards development and dissemination. Being a part of a vibrant SystemC community and expanding the presence with DVCon Europe and SystemC Evolution Day is a very exciting and rewarding part of my job. I look forward to continuing to contribute to these important standardization initiatives together with my peers in the community.”

Prior to merging with Accellera, Martin initiated the standardization of the SystemC AMS extensions in 2006 as part of the Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI).  As the chair of Accellera’s SystemC AMS Working Group, he led the development and release of the SystemC AMS 1.0 standard in 2010, followed by the SystemC AMS 2.0 standard in 2013.  As chair of the P1666.1 committee in the IEEE Standards Association, Martin continued the SystemC AMS standardization efforts resulting in IEEE 1666.1 in 2016.

Martin led DVCon’s expansion into Europe with the addition of DVCon Europe in 2014.  He served as General Chair of the new conference for the first two years and will serve again this year.  Under his guidance, DVCon Europe has become recognized by the industry as a must-attend technical conference focused on system-level and mixed-signal design and verification.    He also helped to launch SystemC Evolution Day in Munich in 2016.  The event is now co-located with DVCon Europe 2018. 

Martin has more than 20 years of experience in mixed-signal and system-level design and verification. He is currently Technical Director System Design & Verification Methodologies at NXP Semiconductors in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Prior to that, he held various engineering positions in Philips Consumer Electronics, Philips Components, and Philips Semiconductors.

He has been a member of the Accellera Board of Directors since 2009, serves as Accellera Technical Committee Chair, is a member of the Accellera Promotions Committee and participates in various standardization development efforts within Accellera such as the SystemC AMS extensions, UVM in SystemC and Multi-Language Verification.

About Accellera Systems Initiative
Accellera Systems Initiative is an independent, not-for profit organization dedicated to create, support, promote and advance system-level design, modeling and verification standards for use by the worldwide electronics industry. The organization accelerates standards development and, as part of its ongoing partnership with the IEEE, its standards are contributed to the IEEE Standards Association for formal standardization and ongoing change control. For more information, please visit www.accellera.org. Find out more about membership. Follow @accellera on Twitter or to comment, please use #accellera. Accellera Global Sponsors are: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.; Mentor, A Siemens Business; and Synopsys, Inc.


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