Some trends in CAD, test and fabrication of circuits and systems

This paper deals with trends in different facets of microelectronics today. On fabrication it is noticed that costs of manufacturing are an issue and that besides ULSI, packaging techniques like 3D or MCMs will probably become more and more used. On the design aspects, different trends are noted like the move from 5 V to 3 V as power supply, the importance of analog and mixed-signal circuits, the growth of BiCMOS and GaAs circuits use, FPGAs, etc... CAD is also addressed to stress that productivity and innovation are the issues to be stressed. One way to increase productivity is to move to higher levels of synthesis than logic, i.e., to make use of emerging architectural synthesis tools. Lastly, European perspectives are addressed, in terms of infrastructures, industrial developments, etc