System and Procesor Design Effort Estimation

Abstract

Design complexity is rapidly becoming a limiting factor in the design of modern high-performance digital systems. The increasing levels of design effort required to improve and implement critical processor and system structures have led to staggering design costs. As we design ever larger and more complex systems, it is becoming increasingly difficult to estimate how much time it takes to design and verify them. Novel quantitative and optimization approaches are needed to understand and deal with the limiting effects induced by design complexity, which remain for the most part hidden from the architect. To address part of these shortcomings, this work introduces µComplexity and µPCBComplexity, a set of methodologies to measure and estimate design effort for modern processor and PCB (printed circuit board) designs.