PRODUKTIV+: Reference System for Measuring Design Productivity of Nanoelectronic Systems

Closing the well-known design gap requires a significant increase of productivity within IC design. Actual productivity numbers have to be known as a solid base for decisions for project planning, project management and for improvement of development processes. Measuring productivity within a manufacturing line is well established. Daily or weekly updates for the productivity numbers are typical. For R&D projects measuring productivity is less straightforward. Current values for the productivity of a development organization are hard to quantify and less objective. Decisions within development projects are strongly based on experience and ‘gut feeling‘ of responsible persons. Approaches to determine productivity within IC development projects are limited to post-mortem analysis and do not cover the important influence of EDA tools and libraries.

PRODUKTIV+ aims at a quantitative measure and predictive estimation of design productivity. Based on this, solid project management decision will be enabled. The benefits of EDA investments will be quantified. Focused investments into EDA will safeguard jobs especially in high-wage countries like Europe.

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