Flow Engineering for Physical Implementation: Theory and Practice by Steve Golson and Pete Churchill
Abstract: EDA tools are never used in isolation. Rather, multiple tools are combined into a sequence called a flow. Furthermore an elaborate infrastructure is required to support and enable flow execution. This flow infrastructure includes directory organization, configuration management, compute servers, desktop machines, job control, license administration, dependency management, operating systems, team communication, error reporting, and libraries of all sorts. Oh, and of course the EDA tools themselves. While EDA tools come with documentation and user guides, and many of the components of the flow infrastructure have standalone documentation, there is virtually no manual or reference guide or checklist available to aid in the creation and improvement of a flow. Join two veteran consultants, each with over 20 years experience in IC design, as we discuss the theory and practice of flow engineering: the design of flow infrastructure and the flows themselves.
Here are the slides as PDF and PowerPoint. It may be hard to follow when you don’t have Pete and me making the presentation, and you’ll probably miss the jokes. Also there are some provocative statements (slide 28 comes to mind). You have to hear the talk to understand the context. Really, we love EDA tools.
Thanks to the Wayback Machine here is an archive of the flowmaker.info website.