dac-submission

Productivity

Use when auditing an ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC) Research-Manuscript submission for Softconf readiness, covering the two-stage abstract-then-manuscript deadline, the 6+1-page ACM double-column page budget with its references-only last page, the double-blind anonymization sweep, TPC conflict-of-interest declaration, and desk-reject triage before the mid-to-late-November cutoff.

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/DAC-Skills/skills/dac-submission/SKILL.md

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DAC Submission

Run this audit before uploading to the DAC Softconf/START site. DAC Research Manuscripts are double-blind, archival papers published on the ACM Digital Library, judged on novelty and measured design-quality impact. Every number below was read from the DAC 2026 Call and Research Manuscripts Guidelines on 2026-07-09 via search renderings of the dac.com/2026 pages (see resources/official-source-map.md); treat them as a one-cycle snapshot and reopen the live call first.

The two-stage deadline

DAC separates abstract submission from manuscript submission, and both matter:

Abstract stage (~one week early): title, full abstract, and every co-author go into Softconf. This seeds TPC bidding and conflict detection. Miss it and the system will not take your PDF.
Manuscript stage (DAC 2026: ~19 November 2025): the anonymized 6+1-page PDF. There is no grace period to repair a malformed or de-anonymized file after the cutoff.

Register the real title and abstract — a placeholder abstract worsens your reviewer match, which is the single largest lever you control (see dac-review-process).

Format and page budget (the 6+1 rule)

ACM template, double-column, 9 or 10-pt font, single PDF. This is DAC's current requirement; ACM is the 2026 copyright holder and the paper is archived on ACM DL.
Page budget: the manuscript is within 6 pages excluding references, plus one additional page for references only. This is the "6+1" budget — six double-column pages carry the entire technical argument, figures, and tables.
The extra page is references-only. Putting any non-reference content (an extra figure, a paragraph of text, an appendix) on that seventh page is grounds for desk rejection. Do not try to smuggle body content there.
Margins, columns, and font are fixed by the template; recover space by editorial compression and tighter figures, never by template tampering.

Double-blind anonymization sweep

DAC review is double-blind: author names and affiliations must not appear anywhere on the manuscript. Because EDA papers lean on tools, benchmark runs, and vendor flows, the leak surface is wide:

# Mechanical pass on the submission PDF
pdfinfo paper.pdf | grep -Ei 'author|creator|producer'
pdftotext paper.pdf - | grep -nEi 'university|institute|@[a-z0-9.]+\.edu|acknowledg|funded|grant' | head
pdftotext paper.pdf - | grep -nEi 'our (tool|lab|group|flow)|github\.com/[a-z0-9-]+|gitlab' | head

DAC-specific leaks to hunt for:

Self-citations in the first person — "in our prior work [7] we..." de-anonymizes. Cite your own prior papers in the third person ("Prior work [7] showed...").
A tool named after your lab or a public repo that discloses authorship — rename or anonymize the tool for review.
A commercial-flow fingerprint (a vendor tool version string, a proprietary PDK/library name under NDA) that both leaks identity and can raise a confidentiality flag.
Acknowledgements, funding, or grant numbers left in the review version — remove them; they return in the camera-ready.
Benchmark or cluster paths (/home/username/..., an internal server name) in a figure or log excerpt.

TPC conflict-of-interest declaration

DAC asks authors to declare conflicts of interest with Technical Program Committee members at submission and assumes none beyond those declared. Declare every co-author's advisor/advisee, recent (typically last-few-years) collaborators and co-authors, same-institution members, and close family — under-declaring a real COI is an integrity problem, not a shortcut to a friendlier reviewer.

Desk-risk triage

Finding at audit time	Severity	Real fix
Body over 6 pages, or content on the references-only page	Named desk-reject ground	Cut/compress; the 7th page is references only
Template altered (columns, shrunk font, margins)	Desk-reject-grade	Recompile clean ACM double-column; recover space editorially
Author identity leak (PDF metadata, first-person self-cite, tool name)	Anonymity violation	Re-anonymize; scrub metadata; third-person self-citations
Abstract stage not completed by the earlier date	No submission slot exists	Nothing fixes this post-cutoff — calendar it now
No standard benchmark / private-data-only evaluation	Scored weakness	Add a recognized suite (ISPD/EPFL/ISCAS/ITC/TAU) or justify explicitly
Same result under review at ICCAD/DATE/ASP-DAC	Dual-submission exposure	Withdraw one; verify DAC's concurrent-submission wording

Final-week order of operations

Freeze the contribution and the QoR numbers; the argument cannot churn in the last week.
Complete the abstract stage (title/abstract/all co-authors) well before its cutoff.
Compile to the ACM double-column template and confirm the 6-page body / 1-page references split on the final PDF.
Run the double-blind sweep on the final PDF — metadata, self-citations, tool names, acks.
Enter TPC conflicts and topic areas in Softconf a day early; late conflicts are a classic midnight failure.
Upload, re-download, and read the PDF cold to confirm it is the file you meant.

Reverify each cycle

Exact abstract and manuscript deadlines and time-zone/AoE convention.
Page budget and ACM template revision (DAC 2026: 6+1, double-column).
Whether a rebuttal/response period exists (待核实 for DAC 2026).
Concurrent-submission wording versus ICCAD/DATE/ASP-DAC, and any generative-AI disclosure rule.

Output format

[DAC submission status] ready / blocked / needs work
[Abstract stage] title/abstract/all co-authors locked by the earlier deadline? yes/no
[Format] body pages used / references-only page clean? ACM double-column compliance
[Anonymity] clean / leaks: <where>
[Evidence] standard benchmark suite present? baselines named?
[COI] TPC conflicts declared for every co-author? yes/no
[Fix queue] <ordered, with owners and dates before the November cutoff>