Advanced BDD Optimization

Thesizeoftechnicallyproducibleintegratedcircuitsincreasescontinuously.Buttheabilitytodesignandverifythesecircuitsdoesnotkeepupwiththisdevelopment.Thereforetoday'sdesignflowhastobeimprovedtoachieveahigherproductivity.InRobustnessandUsabilityinModernDesignFlowsthecurrentdesignmethodologyandverificationmethodologyareanalyzed,anumberofdeficienciesareidentifiedandsolutionssuggested.Improvementsinthemethodologyaswellasintheunderlyingalgorithmsareproposed.Anin-depthpresentationofpreliminaryconceptsmakesthebookself-contained.Basedonthisfoundationmajordesignproblemsaretargeted.Inparticular,acompletetoolflowforSynthesisforTestabilityofSystemCdescriptionsispresented.Theresultingcircuitsarecompletelytestableandtestpatterngenerationinpolynomialtimeispossible.Verificationissuesarecoveredinevenmoredetail.Awholenewparadigmforformaldesignverificationissuggested.Thisisbasedupondesignunderstanding,theautomaticgenerationofpropertiesandpowerfultoolsupportfordebuggingfailures.Allthesenewtechniquesareempiricallyevaluatedandexperimentalresultsareprovided.Asaresult,anenhanceddesignflowiscreatedthatprovidesmoreautomation(i.e.betterusability)andreducestheprobabilityofintroducingconceptualerrors(i.e.higherrobustness).