The Design Centers International Forum will be held on Dec. 4-5. It will be held at Ceitec's new building in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The event has one sponsor: CNPq, Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.

"We are still looking for a second sponsor," according to a spokesman for Ceitec, who can be reached at the following e-mail address: julio@ceitec.org.br

Ceitec also has a preliminary program of the event. A government-backed entity, the Excellence Center for Advanced Electronic Technology or Ceitec, has launched seven IC design centers in the country and claims to have taped out Brazil's first "homegrown" chips.

Ceitec is also putting the finishing touches on what could be the nation's first semiconductor front-end wafer fab. The group is building a small-scale, 6-inch prototype fab in Porto Alegre, the capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The fab is expected to begin production in 2008.