Set aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, the second edition of the International Compact Modeling Conference returns as a focused, two-day, in-person meeting designed for people who actually build, use, and stress device models in the real world. Jointly sponsored by the Si2 Compact Model Coalition together with IEEE and IEEE Electron Devices Society, ICMC 2026 brings design experts, process technologists, and model developers into the same room, the same conversations, and sometimes the same arguments, which is usually where progress starts. The setting is deliberate too; the Queen Mary is part conference venue, part industrial artifact, and it fits a community that spends its days balancing physics, abstraction, and scale.
This year’s program zeroes in on areas where compact modeling is under real pressure from technology scaling and system expectations. Electrostatic discharge modeling remains a practical necessity rather than a solved problem, especially as protection design collides with tighter margins. Reliability and aging-aware compact models are moving from academic interest to operational requirement, driven by long-lived products and aggressive operating conditions. At the same time, AI and machine learning are no longer buzzwords at the edges; they are increasingly applied to model development, parameter extraction, and simulation efficiency, sometimes successfully, sometimes messily, and often worth discussing openly. Beyond the highlighted themes, the conference continues to welcome work on device model development, enhancements and implementations, applications of models in circuit and system contexts, and emerging devices that refuse to fit comfortably into existing frameworks.
The industry backing behind ICMC 2026 reflects how central compact modeling remains across the semiconductor stack. Corporate sponsors include Cadence, Keysight, Micron, Qualcomm, Sandia National Laboratories, Siemens, Synopsys, and TSMC, a mix that spans EDA, manufacturing, systems, and applied research. Media sponsorship from SemiWiki and Semiconductor Digest helps extend the conversation beyond the room, which matters for a field where ideas tend to propagate slowly unless they are documented and debated.
Researchers and practitioners looking to contribute still have a window, as the paper submission deadline has been extended to March 2, 2026. Oral and poster presentations are both part of the program, keeping the barrier to entry practical and the discussions grounded. More details on submissions, registration, and updates can be found via the official conference site at 2026.si2-icmc.org and through ICMC’s social media channels, particularly LinkedIn, where announcements tend to surface first.
Behind the conference stands Silicon Integration Initiative, a global, not-for-profit organization with roughly seventy corporate members collaborating on trusted standards and shared solutions. Si2’s role is less about branding and more about reducing development cost and friction while improving design productivity across foundries, fabless companies, and EDA providers. ICMC fits neatly into that mission, offering a place where the theory of compact models meets the constraints of silicon, schedules, and shipping products, and where the next round of modeling assumptions can be questioned before they harden into standards.