We must give engineers to draw on their experience when starting new designs, writes Robert Huxel
When an electronic design engineer creates a working environment, they don't first make a bench, and then a power supply, and then a DMM, and then an oscilloscope or frequency counter. They procure and apply them.
This 'modular' workbench has evolved with the need for a faster and efficient way of doing things.
Similarly, when an engineer sits down to develop a new product, they won't abandon all their knowledge, but draw on their experience.
What if the engineer could pool all that knowledge, so that everyone in the team could also draw upon it?
Electronic design today is the culmination of a growing number of skills: power, RF, analogue, high-speed digital, embedded software and memory sub-systems.
These are today's 'building blocks' of electronic design and while it's true there are only a finite number of ways each can be configured, we have yet to define or reach that number.
It's also true that none of these elements work in isolation. On the contrary, it is increasingly necessary to configure these elements systemically; they work together to create something larger than the sum of their parts.
Simply putting building blocks together systematically may result in a product, but it won't necessarily meet any of its fundamental objectives. Electronic design today, therefore, relies on the ability to configure design elements in a flexible way, in an environment that promotes success.
The key to reliable and efficient design is epitomised by modularity. Using a modular approach takes the 'building blocks' analogy one step further; modules that have been developed to perform specific functions can confidently be configured systemically to create a reliable and efficient end-product.
But while most engineering teams may think of modules as just a physical sub-system, I see it differently. By categorising any design element as a module, it makes the concept flexible. Everything that is developed within such a methodology must therefore become a parameterised design element — a module — that can be placed within a larger design.
Hierarchically, multiple modules can be used to create a larger module, and so on.
By building up a repository of modular design elements, engineering teams are constantly adding to the pooled knowledge, making it easier to develop new designs from proven modules.
This creates a good environment for design reuse; the single most effective tool to combating the rise in design complexity.
