The evolution of design methodology

James Hogan
EETimes (11/24/2010 12:40 PM EST)

Editor's note: This is the first of a two part opinion piece authored by EDA luminaries Jim Hogan and Paul McLellan.Introduction

In nature, long periods of relatively stable environments are occasionally punctuated by large-scale changes that are the catalyst for evolution to create a large variety of mutations, and then for natural selection to weed out the unsuccessful ones.

The environment in which design methodology lives is also characterized by periods of relative stability punctuated by discontinuous change when the march of process nodes means that insignificant issues are suddenly major problems and when the scale of designs breaks the old methodologies. New approaches abound and, as in nature, the successful ones live on and others fall by the wayside.

Unlike in nature, however, these discontinuities are not rare and seem to come along roughly every ten years. We seem to be at another of these discontinuities today.

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