This book arises from experience the authors have gained from years of work as industry practitioners in the field of Electronic System Level design (ESL). At the heart of all things related to Electronic Design Automation (EDA), the core issue is one of models: what are the models used for, what should the models contain, and how should they be written and distributed. Issues such as interoperability and tool transportability become central factors that may decide which ones are successful and those that cannot get sufficient traction in the industry to survive.

Through a set of real examples taken from recent industry experience, this book will distill the state of the art in terms of System-Level Design models and provide practical guidance to readers that can be put into use. This book is an invaluable tool that will aid readers in their own designs, reduce risk in development projects, expand the scope of design projects, and improve developmental processes and project planning.

Communication between engineers, their managers, suppliers and customers relies on the existence of a common understanding for the meaning of terms. While this is not normally a problem, it has proved to be a significant roadblock in the EDA industry where terms are created as required by any number of people, multiple terms are coined for the same thing, or even worse, the same term is used for many different things. This taxonomy identifies all of the significant terms used by an industry and provides a structural framework in which those terms can be defined and their relationship to other terms identified.

This book arises from experience the authors have gained from years of work as industry practitioners in the field of Electronic System Level design (ESL). At the heart of all things related to Electronic Design Automation (EDA), the core issue is one of models: what are the models used for, what should the models contain, and how should they be written and distributed. Issues such as interoperability and tool transportability become central factors that may decide which ones are successful and those that cannot get sufficient traction in the industry to survive. Through a set of real examples taken from recent industry experience, this book will distill the state of the art in terms of System-Level Design models and provide practical guidance to readers that can be put into use. This book is an invaluable tool that will aid readers in their own designs, reduce risk in development projects, expand the scope of design projects, and improve developmental processes and project planning.

Communication between engineers, their managers, suppliers and customers relies on the existence of a common understanding for the meaning of terms. While this is not normally a problem, it has proved to be a significant roadblock in the EDA industry where terms are created as required by any number of people, multiple terms are coined for the same thing, or even worse, the same term is used for many different things. This taxonomy identifies all of the significant terms used by an industry and provides a structural framework in which those terms can be defined and their relationship to other terms identified. The origins of this work go back to 1995 with a government-sponsored program called RASSP. At the termination of their work, VSIA picked up their work and developed it further. Three new taxonomies were introduced by VSIA for additional facets of the system design and development process. Since role of VSIA has now changed so that it no longer maintains these taxonomies, the baton is being passed on again through a group of interested people and manifested in this key reference work.