Developing Expert CAD Systems

1: Introduction.- The importance of CAD to electronics technology.- The complexity of modern electronics design.- 2: What is CAD?.- The use of CAD.- Problems arising from the use of CAD.- The use of CAD in electronics design.- Conclusions.- 3: How is design carried out?.- The design process.- Circuit analysis.- Logic design.- Logic simulation.- Logic to layout.- Manual layout procedures.- Automatic layout routines - PCBs.- Preliminaries.- Packaging.- Automatic placement routines.- Automatic routing.- Automatic layout routines - ICs.- Design rule checkers.- Mask making.- Conclusions.- 4: What makes a good CAD system?.- Communication through the human-computer interface.- The CAD users' needs.- The user model.- The user profile.- Schemes of communication.- 5: Design representation.- Problem formalization.- Abstraction, decomposition and refinement.- Concepts of formal and informal knowledge.- 6: Techniques for electronics engineering from artificial intelligence.- The evolution of design methods.- Formal and informal decision-making procedures.- The problem-solving approach.- Design automation.- Building intelligence into design procedures.- The computer as consultant.- Choosing languages for design.- Guiding search through a design library.- 7: An 'ideal' CAD system.- Components of a system.- Basic structure and operation.- A sketch of a computer aid for specification.- The CONSULTANT interface.- Advantages of an intelligent CAD system.- 8: A summary.- References.