A Systematic Approach
by Lindsey Vereen
System is a term that we bandy about
pretty loosely. My dictionary defines system as "a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole." One characteristic of a system is that it's usually a subsystem of some larger system. In the context of electronics, we speak of software systems and hardware systems. Also systems on chips, board-level systems, and systems as diverse and complex as the Iridium project. Despite the difficulty of defining just exactly what a system is, electronics design is definitely moving
toward a systems level approach.
The concept of system design is vague. Does it refer to the design of a chip? A board? A card cage? What was a box full of cards last year might be a chip next year. I offer MPEG-2 encoders as an example. Despite the shrinking size of electronics products, in many respects the design problem remains the same size, with obvious exceptions like packaging, thermal considerations, and -most significantly- the increase in software content.
What constitutes an
electronics system has expanded over the years. The more complex the design problem, the more necessary it becomes to find ways to automate the process. The days of debugging a piece of electronics with a meter and a probe are long gone. In this month's "Break Points," Jack Ganssle bemoans the growing software debug problem that arises from the lack of visibility in smaller, faster products. As electronics systems become more complex, we need new ways of accelerating the development process. That means shrinking
the design cycle, performing more rigorous analyses of design requirements, improving simulation and debug capabilities, and solving integration problems with no finger pointing.
Last month I mentioned the peculiar state of affairs in which embedded software tool companies are so much smaller than the hardware companies they support. This peculiarity is evident on the hardware side of design as well. Electronic design automation (EDA) companies, the outfits that develop the design tools for hardware,
generate revenues that are only one percent of those of the semiconductor companies that couldn't produce products without their support.
Developing hardware and software design tools is an expensive process, and the market is limited. Tool companies, except for the very large and lucky ones, often wrestle with the specter of viability. EDA companies have recently begun to cast a collective eye toward embedded systems developmentýincluding software. Interest in hardware/software co-design has been on
the rise for the past couple of years, and this interest is manifesting itself in the emergence of exotic tools to facilitate the design of entire electronic systems. There is a long tradition in the EDA industry for the large companies to acquire small point-tool companies and thus broaden their product offerings. To gain a foothold in the software camp, EDA companies are looking covetously at embedded tool companies. Mentor acquired Microtec a year or so ago, and Viewlogic just recently purchased Eagle
Design. More such acquisitions are likely to be just around the corner.
The fruits of such acquisitions will eventually be tool suites that integrate multiple facets of the design process and enhance communication among design team members. By merging hardware and software design support, tool companies will be able address a larger part of the design space in a more coherent way. And if there is strength in numbers, they may even wield a little more collective clout.
If you have to solve a
system-level problem, you need a system-level solution.
Lindsey Vereen
