VLSI Design Environments

VLSI Design Environments investigates design alternatives such as object oriented data modeling. The difficulty of automating chip architecture designs is caused by the complexity of the problem. The explosion of design alternatives and the great number of constraints for design decisions make a heuristic approach necessary. PLAYOUT aims at the solution of system problems based on hierarchy, top-down planning, silicon compiler presentations, advances in encoding logic synthesis and a microarchitecure and logic optimization system. PLAYOUT supports the physical design from entering the structure of digital systems to the generation of the mask. The concept for autonomous tools with a clear interface to the network description and a simple interface to the graphics is presented. This enables the designer to have a great influence on the configuration of the placement of the schematic diagram. Substantial progess is being made in behavioral and logic synthesis, both of which depend upon specifications