ModelMaker: a tool for rapid modeling from device descriptions

Describes a tool to facilitate rapid modeling of devices from informal documents. ModelMaker analyzes and indexes the source document for the noun phrases and identifiers it contains. When the engineer needs information on pins, components or other indexed features for behavioral modeling, ModelMaker returns all relevant text from the source document. The returned information can be ordered sequentially or on its behavioral or structural content. The VHDL model under development can be edited to add behavioral code and to insert source document fragments as comments. The initial VHDL model is derived from a block diagram of the source document using a schematic capture tool. ModelMaker is currently being extended to automatically extract behavioral information for the engineer