Advancing quality of EDA software

Abstract

In the fast-paced electronics market, design engineers face incredible challenges to keep up with increasing technology complexity and time-to market pressures. Under these challenges, design engineers have been saying that quality issues with their EDA software tools cost them dearly in lost productivity and in missing tight deadlines. Therefore, improving the quality of EDA software tools and processes is essential to the designers' success. Our paper describes a proven methodology for implementation of an effective quality management system (QMS) for driving quality improvements in the EDA industry. The paper provide real-life examples of how this quality management system contributed to improvements in the quality of many EDA software tools that were developed by a leading EDA tool supplier. The positive results of the software process improvement effort demonstrated that investing in quality does pay. Effective implementation of the quality management system described in this paper has reduced software bugs and defects, produced improvements in meeting commitments, and contributed to the overall increase in customer satisfaction.