SYSTEM LEVEL DESIGN: FACILITATIONS AND UTILIZATIONS

The history of hardware description language (HDL) goes back to 1960's when IMB introduced APL (A programming language) for their in- house digital circuit modeling and simulation. The early 1970's witnessed a rise of HDLs like AHPL (originally derivation of APL) and other primarily register transfer level (RTL) languages.The advent of VHDL in the 1980's formalize RTL languages and gave a new meaning to electronic design automation (EDA), that now included simulation, synthesis, physical modeling, and tools for pre and post manufacturing test. With the present changes occurring in digital system design trends, and system integration mixed simulation requirements, HDLs are being redefined. Today’s HDLs present environments for representing mixed mechanical, analog and digital systems and have a significant impact on the electronic design evolution. This talk presents the electronic design evolution and the history of HDLs and shows how these languages have shaped the way electronic systems are being design today. Some guidelines for our country are proposed for dealing with the evolution of the electronic design (especially considering system level design) by considering the effect of HDLs.