Pre-Publish & Publicity

The purpose of VLSI Symposium is to make available the latest advances in the field of VLSI Technology and Circuits. As the premier world forum for the debut of such technical innovation, the Symposium will accept only works in which the preponderance of the material being disclosed has not previously been made available to the public. 

All publications necessarily include a mix of pre-published material (e.g. motivation, background information, summary of prior work in the field) and new material (not previously disclosed to the public). It is the responsibility of the technical program chair to ensure that each work contains significant new material and that the new material constitutes the majority of the work. 

Though the final decision for what constitutes pre-published material lies with the appropriate technical program chair, the following guidelines should make clear how to comply with this policy. A key guideline consists of evaluating whether material is publicly available either through electronic download or orderable in printed form. Such material is considered pre-published and does not qualify as new material. 

The technical program committee considers the extent of new material vs. pre-published material when assessing the value of submissions and choosing which submissions to accept. Therefore, important and relevant pre-published material, including and especially material submitted for potential future publication elsewhere (whether or not already accepted), must be disclosed to the technical program committee, even if new material may constitute the majority of the work. Submissions should clearly indicate how new material differs from pre-published material. Failure to do so is a violation of this policy and can result in rejection of the paper. 

Disclosures that are not usually considered prepublication include: 

1. Preliminary data sheet(s)/product announcement(s) with no technical details. 
2. Presentation at a limited-attendance workshop with no proceedings (e.g. IEEE SSCTW or Computer Elements, or presentations to research sponsors). A key element here involves the ability to find any handouts etc. via electronic means or printed catalog. If handouts are available, but not subsequently downloadable or orderable, this is acceptable. 
3. Information from an advance program, after its publication, or information from the IEEE sponsored press meetings, after the formal press release. 
4. Information provided under NDA to customers, partners, or other parties. 
5. Final signed versions of Master’s and PhD thesis at public or private universities available in open access repositories (i.e. libraries), either printed or online. A thesis published for profit is an exception and is considered prepublication. 
6. Published patents and patent applications. 
7. Electronic copies of articles posted by authors on their own websites and preprint servers such as arXiv.org. Authors posting preprint servers are required to post the IEEE copyright notice on the preprint after the manuscript has been accepted for publication. Details on post-publication procedures for article posted to servers prior to publication are described in the IEEE Author Center.

Disclosures that would normally be considered prepublication include: 

1. Publicly available manuals, data sheets and applications notes that contain substantial technical information such as schematics and principles of operation. 
2. Previously copyrighted material. 
3. Material submitted and accepted for publication elsewhere. 
4. Material submitted for which publication decision is still pending. 
5. Material available on a public website. (e.g., presentations done internal to an organization and disclosed on a publicly accessible web site), with the exception of item 7 above. 

Invited papers should be identified as such in conference proceedings, as they contain, by their nature primarily pre-published material but are of interest to the society as a whole. 

The best policy is to disclose all questionable material to the technical program committee as part of the submission process. If your organization is planning publicity for your work, which you believe might possibly be interpreted as a violation of prepublication policy, contact the technical program chairman PRIOR to the publicity event for approval. Providing preprints, granting interviews, discussing data with members of the media, or participating in press conferences in advance of publication without prior approval from the technical program chair may be grounds for rejection. 

Publicity Guidelines for the IEEE/JSAP Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits

The IEEE/JSAP Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits (VLSI) is the world’s premier technical conference for presentation of the latest and best research on VLSI technology and circuits for the microelectronics industry.  Here are guidelines for releasing news from your organization’s accepted VLSI papers prior to the conference:

1) In VLSI’s own pre-conference publicity, we may highlight various papers from your organization and thereby generate good publicity for both the Symposium and for your company, unless you have told us beforehand that you don’t want them used for pre-conference publicity.  We will alert you to any resulting media interest that we know about. 

2) You can issue news releases concerning your organization’s papers at any time before the conference. But you CANNOT include substantial technical details in those news releases.  Nor can you release any substantial technical details from the paper to the press by any other means, including the Internet, your organization’s web page, in presentations, via third parties or by some other way.  If considerable information is released prior to the conference (for example, too many technical details), the VLSI executive committee will withdraw the submission, and the paper will not be presented.

There are no hard and fast rules to determine how much technical information is too much, because each paper topic is different.  Rather, it is important to keep in mind the spirit and the intent of the pre-publication policy.  The policy is put in place to ensure that the VLSI is the premier place for the technical community to present their results for the first time.  Attendees come to the VLSI expecting to hear and to share technical results that are new and substantial, so that everyone can learn from each other.  Substantial disclosure of the material prior to the conference diminishes the value of attending it.

3) The paper originally submitted and accepted is the reference for the executive committee.  If the content of your news release overlaps considerably with that of the paper, the paper will be withdrawn.  That is true even if your researchers will include and present more details in June at the VLSI than are contained in the original paper.  While that may make for a compelling presentation in June, it will not expand what you can release to the public prior to the conference.

4) In general:

• Talk in general terms about the advances your researchers have made. Concentrate more on why they would be important to the microelectronics industry, rather than on specific details of how a device or circuit was fabricated and its relevant figures of merit.
• Your news releases should aim to tantalize and tease, so that the press and others will be motivated to come to VLSI to view the presentation and to learn more about the topic and how your company spearheads the work.  The goal should not be to preview the paper by giving out key technical details.

• We encourage you to send us your press materials for review before you issue them.  The VLSI executive committee promises a prompt response.  If it is not possible to do that, then please include us on your distribution list. Also, we would appreciate it if you mentioned VLSI by name in your press materials and link to our web site where appropriate, www.VLSIsymposium.org.