Industry Expert Blogs

Of course electronic design automation (EDA) matters! It's indispensible to chip design. However, the more important question is whether EDA is keeping pace with increasing IC design complexity. In most cases, the answer is no. Design complexity is increasing much faster than productivity. How do I know? Average develop team size continue to grow.

So where does that put EDA? Perhaps the best place to look is the Design Automation Conference held a few weeks ago in San Diego. The venerable 48-year-old show played host to nearly 200 vendors, staged myriad panel sessions and technical papers, and attracted thousands of attendees. But as far as I could tell there were no earth-shattering tool breakthroughs portending to reverse the tide. Maybe you saw something I missed—let me know.  Naturally, vendors announced plenty of new products, many of which will undoubtedly boost productivity. But none are likely to obviate the need for ever-larger teams, which is the current prescription for declining relative-productivity.