dac-submission

name	dac-submission
description	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.

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

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