CAE workstations and semicustom IC vendors offer increased design flexibility

The advantages of computer-aided engineering (CAE) workstations and a summary of CAE design tasks are reviewed. The incorporation of semicustom integrated circuit (ICs) (gate arrays and standard cells) into the CAE new designs is discussed. To be effective, the design method and the data must be of high quality, and the entire design process must be thoroughly tested. This requires the joint cooperation of the CAE and semicustom VLSI vendors. Because both the design technology and the method are new, designers need a dependable way to learn and use the new tools. The gate array or standard cell design kit is presented as a solution in which the CAE vendor provides the expertise for implementing the design methodology, and the IC vendor provides the expertise for guaranteeing the design data.