A knowledge based project plan generation and control system for ASIC design management

To enhance project planning and feasibility study for ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) design, a project plan generation system has been developed which differs from known project management systems in the following features. It generates alternative ASIC design project plans and cost estimations by processing ASIC requirement specification data, estimation data for complexity, area, speed, and power dissipation and information from a design style specific knowledge base (digital, analog, gate array, standard cell, full custom), which includes data about design tools, hardware resources, development staff, and design specific economic data. Generation is supported by a set of design specific rules. A project control system allows the manager to control execution of the ASIC design project, to modify the generated project plan, to regenerate a different project plan, and to control activities of the development staff. When the project is finished, planned and actual data are compared and gained experience is stored back into the knowledge base