It has happened folks, another ORConf is behind us and we're all safely home thinking about yet another brilliant installment of Europe's premiere open source silicon design conference. On behalf of the FOSSi Foundation I'd like to thank all who attended, spoke, sponsored, donated and hosted for your involvement with the event – you helped make it run flawlessly under the baking Valencian sun.
The major theme of the year for me, and evidenced by the day and a half of talks in the schedule, was EDA and tooling. We saw all manner of tools for every facet of the open source silicon design flow. Design, verification, simulation, results viewing and tracking, synthesis and optimization, place and route, timing closure, DRC and automation of all of the above were covered by the presentations we heard over the two days. Looking back 10 years ago (incidentally, to the very same ORConf where the FOSSi Foundation was hatched in 2015, ORConf 2015) it was the other way around: three quarters talks on design IP, one quarter tooling. A testament to a decade delivering repositories of incredible IP now gone, and focus having shifted towards tooling and enabling taping open source designs with open source tools. Incredible.
For those not talking about tooling, it was an equally strong showing yet again; open embedded FPGA fabric and SRAM generators were two standouts in my mind for highly complex IP strands which are maturing rapidly. We received another great update on Tiliqua, the open source DSP platform + video DJ project, to close out the main speaking track of the event. This year also saw us hold a new segment at the end of each day; interviews with some titans of the open source semiconductor space recorded as a podcast, so keep an eye out for announcements regarding the release of these!
Our hosts at the Universitat Politècnica de València, in particular Carles Hernandez Luz and local hero Matt Venn and all of the volunteers who helped, put on a fantastic show. We gorged on delicious Valencian cuisine all weekend long and were treated to an excellent conference dinner on the Saturday evening in the warm evening air. Yet again this year lightning talks were held after dinner, with glasses charged. This was the furthest south in Europe we've held ORConf, and the first on the Mediterranean coast, and I suspect the conclusion is we'd be happy to repeat it in such a warm and welcoming environment.
It was great to see so many familiar faces again, and meet plenty of new ones as always. The conference was as well attended as it's ever been, with over 120 folks in attendance at its peak. Thanks to all who took time out of your busy lives and travelled from near and far to spend the three days with us. Once again the "hallway track" was as busy as ever all weekend long. We were overwhelmed by the presentation submissions and had to keep the talk durations short and sharp, and timing precise, so thanks for helping us get through a record number of presentations across the two days of main talks track.
All talks are now up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. Thanks to our AV team at the FOSSi Foundation, led by Simon Cook who was at the helm of the video console all weekend, and who yet again got the talks uploaded within minutes of their completion in the room.
A big thank you to the event's sponsors, who shall remain enshrined on the ORConf 2025 website forever more, and thank you to all who donated via registration, you all contributed to covering the costs which means we can keep the event free, comfortable and convenient to attend for all.
As ever the volunteers who help run the FOSSi Foundation deserve a big shout out: Philipp, Matt, Stefan, Olof, Simon, Andrew, you helped make it happen, great work. We're super pleased to be able to run an event that gets such a positive response from the community, and to be able to make a contribution in this way.
Finally, we hope to see you all again soon. We're still figuring out where we'll be next time around so keep an eye out for announcements. Until then, adios.