Hyderabad: The 21st international conference on very large scale integration (VLSI) design and the 7th international conference on embedded systems will be held here next week to highlight the next generation challenges and opportunities in multicore processor design.

The five-day conference will start Jan 4 and will be held at Hyderabad International Convention Center (HICC). It will be attended by leading VLSI and embedded systems architects and technology experts.

A three-day technical program starting Jan 6 will feature keynote and plenary talks by industry leaders, technical paper presentations that reflect the state-of-the-art in VLSI design and embedded systems. It will also include embedded tutorials, a panel discussion, and a parallel track for industry forum.

Sponsored by the VLSI Society of India (VSI) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) among others, the conference is a forum for researchers and designers to present and discuss various aspects of VLSI design, electronic design automation (EDA), enabling technologies, and embedded systems.

Dirk Meyer, president and COO, AMD, will be presenting the opening keynote speech followed by plenary keynote address by Wally Rhines,CEO, Mentor Graphics.

The organisers expect a huge turnout for this year's event. Since the first conference held in 1985, the annual conference has grown into a leading international conference on VLSI design, which draws around 700 participants from India and abroad every year.