Design Automation Conference
The Design Automation Conference, or DAC is a combination of a technical conference and a trade show, both specializing in electronic design automation.
DAC started as the SHARE design automation workshop in 1964, and has been held yearly since. Up until the mid-70s, DAC had sessions on all types of design automation, including mechanical and architectural. After that, for all intents and purposes, only topics concerned with electronic design have been included. Also until the mid-70s, DAC was strictly a technical conference. Then a few companies started to request space to show their products, and within a few years the trade show portion of DAC became the main focus of the event. As a rough metric of the importance of the trade show portion, about 5500 people attended DAC in 2005, whereas ICCAD, at least as strong technically but with no trade show, drew perhaps a tenth as many attendees.
Other similar conferences are ICCAD (technical only, no trade show), Design and Test Europe (DATE), and the Asia South Pacific Design Automation Conference (ASPDAC).