ABSTRACT
Figure 52.2 summarizes the historical development of design automation technology and computer programs. Design automation programs are also called
applications
or
tools
. Design automation efforts started in the early 1960s as academic research projects and captive industrial programs, focusing on individual tools for physical and logical design. Later developments extended logic simulation to more detailed
circuit
and
device
simulation and more abstract
functional
simulation. Starting in the mid to the late 1970s, new areas of test and synthesis emerged and commercial design automation products appeared. Today, the electronic design automation industry is an international business with a well-established and expanding technical base [5]. The electronic design automation technology base will be examined by presenting an overview of the following topical areas:
• Design entry • Conceptual design • Synthesis • Verification • Testing • Frameworks
Design entry
, also called
design capture
, is the process of communicating with a design automation system. Design entry involves describing a system design to a design automation system, invoking applications to analyze and/or modify the system design, and querying the results. In short, design entry is how an engineer “talks” to a design automation application and/or system.
