The reality of system design today: do theory and practice meet?

ACSD aims to be a forum "for disseminating advanced research results on theory and practice of design of concurrent systems". We look at the reality of system design as practiced in industry today and what the needs as expressed and demonstrated by designers actually are. Most industrially successful applications of system design concepts and tools are in distinct design niches, and generic methods and tools have not yet been found which apply to a wide range of systems. We look at these niche applications, especially those driven by system-on-chip design, and identify the barriers to wider adoption of known results and methods. In addition, we try to anticipate the nature of future architectures for highly-concurrent systems, and speculate on the system design needs that may be exposed by them.