Below are the five most heavily trafficked DAC stories on the EE Times.com. All of our story archives as well as our on camera interview video clips can be accessed via http://www.eetimes.com/dac06/.

EDA users decry tools
North American chip designers seem to be happier with EDA tools and vendors than they were one year ago. But as the "EE Times 2006 EDA Users Survey" shows, IC designers still have deep concerns about, and various problems with, nanometer chip designs.

'Monopolistic' EDA industry needs course correction, critics say
The "monopolistic" EDA industry has a path to revenues beyond the $4 billion mark, where it has been stuck, but it will have to make some serious course corrections to find it, according to members of a DAC panel.

Thermal effects not an immediate concern, says TI exec
Contrary to popular belief, the impact of high temperature on a chip design is not among the most immediate concerns for advanced IC design, according to Robert Pitts, senior member of the technical staff and 45-nanometer platform manager at Texas Instruments.

Costello: VCs see EDA as 'dead space'
Joe Costello, former CEO of Cadence Design Systems, came back to this year's Design Automation Conference and said in his keynote speech, "VC investors are not interested in EDA. They see it as a dead space."

Dataquest to EDA: 'It's the software, stupid'
If you think EDA is all about IC and pc-board design, your thinking is too limited, according to Gartner Dataquest analysts speaking at the eve of this week's Design Automation Conference (DAC) here. The biggest problem with system-on-chip (SoC) design is embedded software development, the analysts said.