GSA Forum
David Fried, CTO, Coventor, Inc.
It is difficult to imagine what the world of IC design would be like without tools that allow engineers to model, simulate, optimize and “virtually” replicate the millions of gates and transistors that comprise a modern chip. Indeed, it would be literally impossible to design these types of devices without sophisticated automation tools, higher-level abstraction methodologies and extremely accurate simulation, modeling and checking technologies.
To manage ever-increasing complexity, the electronic design automation (EDA) infrastructure has evolved into a highly organized hierarchy. At the lowest level of abstraction, compact models and SPICE serve circuit designers with analytical tools to design small circuits with high precision. At higher levels of abstraction, VHDL, Verilog and synthesis tools allow larger more complex designs to be assembled in virtual space. Routing tools allow massive monolithic products to be wired and analyzed virtually, while essentially ignoring the details of lower levels of this hierarchy. With this advanced EDA infrastructure in place, the design community is now creating massive multi-core processors with embedded memories and advanced I/O capabilities.
Steve Breit 