CAD/CAM/CAE : electronic design automation, 1992 - Archive Server

3-2 CAD/CAIWCAE—Electronic Design Automation Applications
distribution of responses. Survey results showed that design groups
may consist of 1 to more than 50 engineers. Figure 3-4 shows mean
number of engineers per project for a variety of application areas
represented geographically. Of particular note to EDA vendors, larger
design groups will require increasingly more sophisticated design
management and revision control tools in the future. Areas of opportunity
exist in the large communications and data processing companies,
as they tend to have larger design teams. Examining the data
geographically. North American design teams consistently have a
larger mean number of engineers, reflecting the increased complexity
of designs developed. Dataquest anticipates that the consumption of
design management and revision control tools will be led by
Nortti America for the foreseeable future.
To determine the makeup of a typical electronic design team. Dataquest
asked users what categories of engineers were applied to a
design project. Figures 3-5, 3-6, and 3-7 show the results of this question,
in total number of responses. This information may be used as a
gauge of the relative magnitude of the population of each type of
engineer. For example, it would be safe to say that worldwide, there
are more digital designers than any other type of engineer. Additionally,
a significant number of engineers call themselves system
architects. It is important to note that these are users' perceptions, and
that the term "system architect" may be open for individual
interpretation.
The Design Process
To better understand the design process, Dataquest investigated the
percentage of time spent in each of the major categories of electronic
design. Dataquest split the design process into the following areas
(discussed in greater detail later in this chapter):
• Specification, definition of design, and system partitioning
• Logic design and verification
• Design for test and test vector development
• Systems integration and verification
• Prototype debugging
The Design Wedge
As shown in Figure 3-8, the design process may be thought of as a
three-dimensional wedge, with the x-axis representing design time,
the y-axis representing design errors uncovered, and the z-axis
representing the design implementation flexibility. At the very first
stage of the design process, specification and definition, the project
team has the greatest amount of flexibility and uncovers a large
share of potential design problems. As the team moves down the
design process, the flexibility and amount of "what-if" analysis
begins to decrease. Additionally, the majority of glaring errors of
the design are uncovered and resolved. As one travels along the
x-axis, the number of design errors uncovered decrease; however,
more time is spent in identifying and resolving these bugs. The
November 30, 1992 ©1992 Dataquest Incxirporated CCAM-EDA-UW-9201