The Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) conferences provide users of Synopsys tools and IP with an opportunity to share experiences, learn about Synopsys’ newest technology and future product direction and network with Synopsys experts and members of the local design engineering community. Each SNUG conference is organized to reflect the needs of local Synopsys users and ensure a high-quality technical program.
SNUG Technical Committee: The SNUG Technical Committee comprises Synopsys users and Synopsys technical experts. This committee solicits, selects, and reviews User Technical Papers and User Technical Presentations that are presented at the conference and advises Synopsys on conference topics and structure. The Technical Committee establishes the guidelines under which User papers are recognized for their technical excellence.
SNUG Technical Committee Chair: The SNUG Technical Committee Chair is a selected member of the SNUG Technical Committee. The Technical Committee Chair is responsible for ensuring a quality process for qualifying, reviewing and recognizing User Technical Papers. The Technical Committee Chair partners with the SNUG Program Manager to ensure that the Technical Committee membership is representative of the local SNUG user community, has the expertise necessary to review User Paper submissions across a broad range of technologies and Synopsys products and meets as required to accomplish its goals. The Technical Committee Chair is the primary liaison between the Technical Committee and Synopsys for conference-related planning and issue resolution. The Technical Committee Chair may be asked to participate in the promotion of SNUG and is typically available at the conference to welcome attendees and recognize award winning user contributions.
SNUG Program Manager: The SNUG Program Manager is the primary liaison between Synopsys and the SNUG Technical Committee. The Program Manager facilitates the operations and activities of the Technical committee, including the solicitation, selection, review and recognition of User Technical Papers. The SNUG Program Manager ensures open communications between Synopsys and the Technical Committee, solicits input, and regularly updates the Technical Committee on conference planning and status.
SNUG Governing Board
The SNUG Governing Board comprises the current and most recent available past Technical Committee Chairs of each member SNUG conference, the SNUG Program Manager and the current Synopsys Technical leads for each member SNUG conference. The governing board is to consist of a majority of non-Synopsys employees.
Rules to Modify SNUG Bylaws
- The SNUG Bylaws will be reviewed by the Governing Board annually, soon after SNUG Silicon Valley.
- These SNUG Bylaws apply to member SNUG conferences. The current member conferences are SNUG Silicon Valley, SNUG Boston, SNUG Austin and SNUG Canada.
- Any Technical Committee member of a member SNUG can petition for a change to the bylaws. That petition will be reviewed and voted on by the Governing Board within 30 days. A majority vote of the Governing Board is required to change the bylaws.
- Proposals submitted to the Governing Board that are not approved are not eligible for re-submission for one year.
All member SNUG conferences must abide by the latest rules in effect at the time of their Call for Papers.
SNUG Technical Committee Membership
- Technical Committee members must qualify to attend SNUG in order to participate on the Technical Committee.
- Technical Committee members must have at least 2 years design experience with Synopsys tools and have attended at least 1 SNUG conference.
- Technical Committee members must have previous experience in writing or reviewing technical papers.
- Synopsys employees may act as members on the Technical Committee, as needed.
- Addition of new members is by agreement of the Technical Committee Chair and the Program Manager.
- The Technical Committee Chair and the Program Manager, by agreement, may remove existing members if performance consistently falls below expected participation as outlined under ‘Role of the SNUG Technical Committee Member’.
Role of the SNUG Technical Committee Member
- The primary role of the Technical Committee member is to perform peer reviews of User Technical Papers and presentations (duties to include working with the authors to guide the development of their papers and presentations, giving suggestions on papers and presentations for improvements). This must be done in a timely manner to meet deadlines as communicated by the Program Manager and Technical Chair.
- Technical Committee members advise presenters on issues such as dry-runs, presentation tips, etc.
- Technical Committee members advise and collaborate with Synopsys on user submissions regarding acceptance and reviews.
- Technical Committee members participate in scheduled Technical Committee conference calls.
- Technical Committee members must read and rate all candidate papers (up to 10 papers) according to the Technical Committee Chair’s instructions. In round one, vote on and rank the selected finalists; in round two, vote for the Technical Committee Award.
- Technical Committee members are encouraged to make suggestions/recommendations and provide feedback regarding the overall conference.
- Technical Committee members are encouraged to act as ambassadors of the conference and should whenever possible attend, contribute to Q&A during sessions, interact with attendees and gather feedback, observe and raise issues onsite, etc.
- Technical Committee members should expect to commit ~30 hours over five months.
Additional Duties:
- It is preferred that Technical Committee members attend the conference, though attendance is not mandatory.
- Experienced members may be asked to mentor new committee members during their first year of membership.
- Technical Committee members may be asked by the SNUG Technical Committee Chair and the SNUG Program Manager to act as moderators for presentations given at SNUG conferences.
SNUG Technical Committee Chair
- The Technical Committee Chair role is a one-to three-year commitment, with a maximum term of three years (per conference).
- Any member who serves on the Technical Committee for three or more years is eligible to be the Technical Committee Chair.
- The Technical Committee Chair partners with the Program Manager to organize submissions, make recommendations on acceptance/rejection, and address concerns raised by members of the Technical Committee.
- The Technical Committee Chair assists with the composition of the Technical Committee to ensure all technical expertise areas are represented. Synopsys users are preferred members, then Synopsys employees if needed.
- The Technical Committee Chair coordinates the Technical Committee Award voting process.
- The Technical Committee Chair works with Program Manager to assist with other special events for the conference.
- The Technical Committee Chair leads Technical Committee conference calls.
- The Technical Committee Chair may act as Master of Ceremonies at the conference:
- Welcomes attendees during the general session
- Introduces the Keynote speaker/ Guest speakers
- Announces and presents User Awards at the conference
- The Technical Committee Chair moderates the Technical Committee review meeting at the conference.
Process for Selecting a New Technical Chair
When it is time to select a new Technical Chair, the current Technical Chair and the Program Manager identify a qualified candidate. The current Technical Committee Chair contacts that committee member to explain the responsibilities of the role, and to gauge interest. If the committee member is interested in the position, the current Technical Committee Chair nominates the committee member to the entire committee and all are asked to accept or reject the nomination. The current Technical Committee Chair collects the votes and maintains voters' privacy. The majority vote decides. If the majority rejects the nomination, then a new qualified candidate is identified and the process is repeated
SNUG Authors
- Authors must qualify to attend SNUG in order to submit a paper for SNUG.
- Authors are required to complete a paper.
- Authors may be invited to present their accepted papers at SNUG. Authors are responsible for their own travel expenses.
- The author(s) presenting at the conference must possess a strong command of the language in which the conference is being conducted, and must be able to present clearly in that language.
- Authors are required to accept the SNUG usage and copyright statement requirements at time of initial submission.
- Authors are required to review and adhere to guidelines as outlined on the abstract submission web page.
SNUG Submission and Acceptance Process
- Acceptance is determined through a two-step process:
- Preliminary paper acceptance is based on an initial proposal via the official SNUG web submission form. At the preliminary acceptance level, authors are invited to submit a draft and final version of their paper.
- Conference presentation spots are awarded to authors after the final paper is complete, reviewed, and approved by the Technical Committee.
- The Technical Committee reserves the right to rescind acceptance at any submission/review stage if a paper or presentation goes outside the scope of the originally accepted proposal or does not meet SNUG criteria and/or guidelines.
- Submissions received after the Call for Papers deadline has passed may be considered and accepted on a case-by-case basis.
- The same submission may be submitted to more than one SNUG conference, and will be considered independently for each conference.
SNUG ‘Publish Only’ Guidelines
In some cases, submissions may be accepted for paper publication only with no presentation spot awarded. SNUG submissions may be accepted for ‘paper only’ as per the following guidelines:
- Author request
- Relevance
- Topic/Presentation space
- Travel
- Presentation history
SNUG Papers & Presentations
- Each paper will be assigned to a SNUG Technical Committee member for review.
- Each paper will be assigned to a Synopsys engineer for internal review.
- Papers should be based on either publicly released Synopsys tools or on general design methodology.
- Papers should not be based on third party proprietary tools.
- Any paper found to contain incorrect information shall undergo further technical review. The Technical Chair may remove any paper or presentation from the conference program that appears out of compliance with the Paper and Presentations requirements.
- After the final presentation submission is made, the presentation may not be altered.
Technical Committee Awards
The Technical Committee recognizes the technical excellence of papers submitted to SNUG through the Technical Committee Awards. A cash gratuity is given to the award winners by Synopsys. Winners are selected by a vote of the Technical Committee. Consideration for awards is based on the following criteria:
- Topic: How innovative, relevant is the subject matter?
- Benefit: Is there a clear take-away from the paper?
- Completeness: Does the topic have substantiated data to support conclusions, results?
- Effective Communication: Spelling, grammar, punctuation, labeling, use of template all count!
The Technical Committee can recognize up to three outstanding conference papers
- Technical Committee Award
- Technical Committee Honorable Mention (2)
Technical Committee Award Voting Process
- The Technical Committee chairs will create guidelines on how to read for the technical committee award and publish them to the technical committee members. These are guidelines, not requirements, which may help as papers are read. They will reflect the 'Paper and Presentation Requirements'.
- The Technical Committee Chair, along with the Program Manager, will assign the first and second round paper assignments to the Technical Committee members. As much as possible this will be based on the Technical Committee members’ areas of expertise.
- Synopsys employees are exempt from voting on any user awards.
Round One Voting
Each Technical Committee member will read the papers in their session, and possibly an additional paper, such that each paper gets at least 3 votes. The papers will be scored on a scale of 0-5 and the top 6 will advance to round two. Technical Committee members may nominate a specific paper to advance, regardless of its score. The Technical Committee Chair decides whether to advance the paper or not. At least 6 and no more than 10 papers will advance to round two.
Round Two Voting
The Technical Committee Chair will assign papers to each Technical Committee member. Each paper needs to be read by 50% of the members of the Technical Committee, and each Technical Committee member needs to read at least 50% of the round two papers. They will be scored on a scale of 0-5. Technical committee members may not vote on their own papers.
Conference Presentation Awards
Awards for presentation excellence are decided based on a vote of conference attendees. Any user who presents a technical session at SNUG—whether or not they have submitted a User Technical Paper to the conference—is eligible for a presentation award. Winners of the Technical Committee Awards are also eligible to win a conference presentation award.
The number of awards will vary by conference, but recognition will typically include:
- Best Conference Presentation
- Outstanding Conference Presentation (2)
- Outstanding New Presenter
Award Eligibility
The following conditions of eligibility apply to both Technical Committee Paper Awards and Conference Presentation Awards
- Only new, unpublished submissions will be considered for awards at SNUG. In the case of papers re-submitted with significant changes, the Technical Committee Chair determines whether the paper is considered new or not.
- In order to be considered for any award, the primary author of the SNUG paper or presenter of the presentation must be a user. Synopsys employees are ineligible for SNUG awards.
- Final papers submitted after the published deadline are ineligible for a Technical Committee Award.
- Final presentations submitted after the published deadline are ineligible for a Presentation Award.