Planning and managing top-down, concurrent VLSI design processes

Abstract: "In this paper we discuss the general strategies typically embedded in top-down design methodologies to control design complexity, and show how they can be captured and implemented in a design process planning and management meta-tool. We also desctibe [sic] such a tool, called Minerva. Minerva generates a high-level, problem-based representation of the entire design process and, based on this representation, provides a set of planning and management services that is sufficient to fully support top-down. [sic] design. Such services include: plan generation; plan execution; automatic problem reformulation (i.e., decomposition); support of backtracking for redesign and for problem re- definition; dynamic sharing of design information among designers cooperating in the same design process; tracking of requirements throughout the various levels of abstraction traversed during the design process; and effective handling of sub-problem interactions in all of the above situations. All of these services are offered assuming the most complex scenario, i.e., a concurrent, distributed design environment."