DesignCon 2010 is right around the corner. It will be a busy time for all. As you set your schedule for the fours days of the show, be sure to add these events to your list:

Visit beTheSignal.com at booth #319. You’ll want to pick up a mug, an Appendix A -pocket guide to signal integrity design guidelines and, of course, some chocolate! Stop by and meet Susan and Laura. And I may have copies of my science fiction book, Shadow Engineer, on sale.

Monday, Feb 1, in the Theatre, I will present a 3 hour education forum, “Practical Magic: Signal Integrity Problems Disappear with the Right Tools“. My Agilent buddies and I will be showing about a dozen demos of some really cool hardware and software tools that I think should be in every signal integrity engineer’s tool box. check out my youtube video!

Tues, 8:30 am, I will present a paper “Frequency Dependent Material Properties: So What?”, with Don DeGroot, Sanjeev Gupta and Colin Warwick. If you are wondering about all the hype associated with “causal material properties” and want to know how does this apply to me, you’ll want to check out this talk.

Tues, 9:20, my colleague, Paul Huray, will present, “Impact of Copper Surface Texture on Loss, a Model that Works.” There’s a lot of buzz these days about rms roughness of copper. Come hear Prof Huray explain it’s really the surface texture of the copper, not just the rms roughness, that affects the extra losses from rough copper. You may find, as I discovered, that “everything you know about current and signal propagation is wrong.” Come hear the right way of thinking about how signals really propagate on interconnects.

Tues, 3:45 pm, I will participate on a panel discussion, “Science Fiction…is it really fiction?” This has got to be one of the more fun events at DesignCon, at least for me. I get to share the panelist table with Gentry Lee, famed co-author with Aurthur C. Clark of the Rama series, among other books, and noted scientist at JPL. We will talk a little about our visions of the future and open up the floor to discussion. Rumor has it, some of us might have books available for a book signing!

Wed 8:30 am. If you missed my education forum on Monday afternoon, you can catch it again on Wed morning.

I’m exhausted already, just writing about the exciting happenings at DesignCon 2010. See you there!