CAD tool evaluation: methodology, criteria, benchmarks and results

Methods to evaluate both already existing and under development tools in the CAD field become essential. Tool evaluation requires, first of all, a general methodology which is based on functional decomposition of the considered CAD area. Criteria will be defined at each level of the decomposition and benchmarks leading to meaningful values for these criteria will be selected. The last point is the necessity of a complete integration of these items in a complete evaluation system. This study benefits from the preliminary results of the European ESPRIT project ECIP2