VHDL and top-down methods prove successful in automotive electronic design

Sophisticated on-board electronics complicate the automotive design and development process and can affect vehicle time-to-market. Technical risks that may impact the design cycle include the exchange of information between design teams, the complexity of the design, and the effective use of methods and tools. Market risk factors may also impact this new design approach. These include specification ambiguities, late changes in functional requirements, and competing product announcements. Here, the author describes how top-down design techniques supported by electronic design automation (EDA) tools and the VHSIC hardware description language (VHDL) reduce these risks and meet the challenges of advanced automotive electronics