The Human ECO Compiler by Steve Golson
Abstract: Engineering Change Orders or ECOs are all too prevalent in ASIC design. Unfortunately there are few tools that directly support these “last minute” changes to a design. So it’s left to us humans to figure out a solution.
This paper will cover the ad hoc solutions that have been developed for implementing ECOs. Topics to be covered:
- basic definitions: the types of ECOs
- where in the flow to make the change
- advanced netlist dissection techniques
- implementing large ECOs using thousands of gates
- equivalence checking: your best friend
- back-end issues
- why ECOs are really a management problem, and how to deal with it
This won the Best Paper Award.
I gave this paper again at Boston SNUG in September 2004, and won Best Paper there, too! (Now the rules are different so you can’t win twice for the same paper any more…)