Prevention, quality and other innovations in hardware debug

Neil Johnson, XtremeEDA Corp
EETimes (7/2/2012 12:08 PM EDT)

Debug represents a major cost to hardware development organizations and a constant source of frustration for engineers. According to a survey commissioned by Mentor Graphics in 2010, verification engineers spend an estimated 32% of their time debugging code[1]. In a typical 8-hour day, that translates to more than 2.5 hours specifically dedicated to fixing defects.

Spending 2.5 hours debugging code can make for a frustrating day for an engineer, but what does that mean for the organization? According to the EE Times Global Salary and Opinion Survey from 2010, the annual compensation for a North American engineer, including bonuses and overtime pay, averaged $107,300[2]. From that, it’s easy to make a best case, back-of-the-napkin estimate capturing the cost of employing a medium sized team of engineers to build a reasonably sized ASIC. The result is a very big number.

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