Electronics virtualization was the unifying factor between hardware and software engineers, creating a new wave of innovation and affordable products to change the world.
Sunnyvale, CA, November 1, 2028--At the turn of the century, engineers were squeezing productivity out of tools designed for sub-100K gate chips to make them workable for chips at 10 million gates and more. This coupled with an industrywide shift to increased processor content and software-based differentiation spelled disaster status quo. The growing complexity, manufacturing, verification and cost problems inherent in modern semiconductors and systems became an insurmountable wall for the entire electronics industry shrinking profit margins, forcing consolidation and stifling innovation.
Around 2005, some electronics systems companies began to look at a new paradigm called electronics virtualization, supported by a nascent industry of virtual prototype creation. This paradigm took the electronics industry in a much different direction 30 years later.
In 2028, virtual prototypes, cost effective and globally accessible by design teams over the internet, have replaced expensive and limited hardware prototypes in electronic system design centers. Multicore processors, a revolutionary concept in 2005, is a pervasive element in embedded systems, thanks to electronic virtualization, and the integration of software features is seamless. Design is completely automated employing synthesis from high-level system specs through virtual prototypes to support rapid system design optimization and top-down design methodologies.
The shift from hardware to virtual prototypes also changed the way engineers are trained. Top university engineering curricula use virtual prototype modeling and simulation coupled with rigorous experimentation methodologies as a core education tool. Engineering students are taught to learn by experimentation resulting in accelerated learning and making distance-learning programs more effective. Students in New York and London and work in virtual labs at leading universities like the University of Texas in Austin, expanding enrollments, making teaching staff more efficient.
Engineering curricula include core system-engineering concepts preparing engineering students to handle increasing product design complexity and the need to accomplish better product optimization across functionality, performance, power, quality, time to market, and cost. There is increased academic engineering curriculum emphasis on "mechatronics" as an interdisciplinary education curriculum that focuses on integrating mechanical, electronics, and software into sophisticated control systems. Chips commonly include analog and digital electronics, and nano-scale mechanical devices.
This shift in education patterns created a sea change in the engineering tool industry. After multiple failed attempts around 2010 to consolidate the fractious electronics design automation industry into two or three integrated competitors, the entire industry was swallowed by Intel, Samsung, TSMC, and IBM, driving the smaller semiconductor companies to develop their own tooling.
