The presentation will be given by Gideon Zweijtzer from Technolution.
Ever since electronic circuits began to be designed, schematic drawings have been used to capture the design. But is a schematic drawing always the best way to do this? Is it possible to improve the electronics design process using alternative ways of design capture? How can the amount of effort required be reduced for example? And what paradigm shift needs to be introduced to achieve this?
In conventional electronics design, schematics are the de facto standard. For analog parts of the design the reason is obvious – a picture says more than a thousand words. However, in order to obtain the information required for PCB design, a lot of detail needs to be added. This detail is then either not visible, or the schematics become unreadable.
When DDR SDRAM is connected to an FPGA, for example, a drawing requires almost a complete sheet; and drawing it requires a lot of effort. Moreover, the layout constraints remain hidden behind the sheet’s surface, even though these constraints are very important for PCB design. What is needed, therefore, is a solution that reduces the effort involved, while making hidden information visible.
Technolution has devised just such a solution by introducing Hardware Design Language (HDL). This is a domain-specific language that defines circuits based on text. HDL allows DDR SDRAM, for instance, to be implemented in a few lines of text, while all information, including the layout constraints, remains visible at all times. By combining our HDL with schematic capture for analog parts of the design we have created the best of both worlds.
Gideon Zweijtzer is System Architect at Technolution B.V. After he successfully completed the study Electronic Engineering at Delft Technical University, Gideon started as an electronic designer at Technolution 16 years ago. Digital designs being his expertise, he brought the use of programmable logic, and FPGA design in particular, to a higher level within the company. He has always shown affinity with tools, methods and automation. In an attempt to use the good ideas of different design disciplines, in the last two years Gideon has been the driving force behind the design and development of ‘HDL’, the Hardware Description Language.