Mentor Graphics to support model-driven DFSS in automotive industry

Jul 18, 2008 (Datamonitor via COMTEX) -- MENT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Mentor Graphics, a supplier of electronic design automation systems, has announced that its virtual prototyping tool, SystemVision, will support Design for Six Sigma methodologies to achieve cost-effective design innovation by a model-driven development process.

The development process for a product made up of a complex blend of hardware and software, analog and digital signals, sensors and actuators, and a mix of disciplines, such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic, is difficult to manage efficiently. At the same time, using physical prototyping to optimize the design for manufacturability becomes prohibitively expensive, cumbersome, and time consuming.

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) methodologies combined with model-driven development can result in order-of-magnitude improvements in both productivity and quality when virtual prototyping, automated data collection, and statistical analyses are used to guide the model-driven development process.

The SystemVision tool provides a mixed-signal, multi-discipline modeling/simulation environment that acts as a virtual lab for the design and analysis of distributed mechatronic systems. The SystemVision tool integrates with the Minitab(R) Statistical Software package by Minitab, Inc., which provides a framework for designing experiments and modeling quality measures. This enables users to access the SystemVision tool's powerful multi-run simulation and analysis capabilities to automate data collection from mathematical models.

The SystemVision tool leverages modeling languages - VHDL-AMS, SPICE, and C - and includes graphical design entry capabilities, modeling and library tools, simulation technology, and powerful waveform viewing and analysis tools.

Model-driven development is an approach to design that uses models to specify requirements, verify designs, and generate implementations. It allows each stakeholder to participate in the process at an appropriate level of abstraction, whether at the functional or specification level, architectural level, or implementation level. It enables options to be explored and trade-offs to be made at each level and provides a structure for communication between stakeholders such as system architects, system-level and component-level engineers, and Six Sigma practitioners.

The SystemVision tool provides the framework and tools to support such a model-driven development process. The design is managed through a model hierarchy starting at the functional specification stage, moving down through the architectural design stage, and then to the most detailed, component-level implementation stage of the process.

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