SBIR-STTR Award

There is a rapidly growing need for tools for the design and synthesis of electronic systems and multi-device circuits: to support greater clock speeds; packaging densities and circuit complexity; to enable designers to rapidly create and compare alternative design concepts; to eliminate multiple redesign cycles; and to enable reuse of prior design knowledge. There no CAE tools commercially available today that meet the above needy based on eight years of previous, successful world in investigating and developing such tools, Omniview's project team members have developed the concept of synthesis by-composition as the one mod likely to succeed the architecture of the proposed design & synthesis system based on this concept is composed of five major subsystems a friendly user interface; a design synthesis engine; a design knowledge repository; a family of design advisor to design synthesis engine; a design knowledge repository; a family of design advisors to design space exploration, packaging, reliability, to ability, and manufacturability/cost; and a design partitioning expert system output can also be interfaced to available CAE/CAD tools, e g, PC layout Omniview's Phase I technical objectives are to demonstrate the feasibility of its overall system concept, to evaluate new subsystem concepts for design partioning, and to complete the system architecture and specifications, leading to a Phase II implementation and demonstration plan that is highly likely to succeed Omniview' project team is one of the mod experienced in the world in this specific area, based on its 20 man-year of direct, prior work its 20-plus publications, including six by the principal investigator the team also has 30 years of additional, relevant, experience in BHDL, simulation, high-density electronics packaging, testability, etc.

The front end of the design process for electronic system-level hardware determines nearly 70% of the life-cycle cost. Available CAE/CAD tools only automate the back end of the design process which determines 10% to 20% of the cost. The complexity of the front-end design process has been increasing explosively due to: the rapid proliferation of high-density packaging, the large number of components, increasing system complexity and speed, and emphasis on life-cycle cost and abilities. The designer's lack of time and experience to deal with these factors results in suboptimal design, component selection and packaging, and multiple design iterations. Longer time-to-market, higher product life-cycle and development costs are the end result. In Phase I, Omniview developed a detailed functional specification and demonstrated feasibility of a Design and Synthesis System (DSS) and a family of Design Advisors to automate the front-end, electronic, system-level hardware design process. Phase II proposes to implement a working prototype of DSS, an initial family of Design Advisors, and a Design Knowledge Repository including sufficient part and template models to allow evaluation of DSS on actual design problems. A solid foundation for a commercial product for Omniview will result.