User Interface Design (LSI Logic)

An ASIC jockey rides his computer chip design like it's a twitchy thoroughbred. To optimize all the tiny little thingies that make an Application Specific Integrated Circuit requires hundreds of custom tools, many of which are created by the jockey himself. It's a good two-year race for a typical ASIC. His pride comes from the speed with which he shuts down timing issues so that his chip is the sleekest, smallest speed devil out there, delivered to market a couple horselengths (months) before the competition.

The ASCI Jockey would not love the interface we designed for creating LSI Logic's RapidChips which are shiny, heavy, expensive horses that deliver 18 months before their sleek ASIC rivals. The primary user for RapidChip's UI is an engineering manager, probably once a darn good ASIC designer, who now manages a team of specialists. Her mission: streamline the design process and deliver 90% of power of the ASIC competitors in 6 months instead of 24. Tweeky, tiny optimizations are not on her list.

The design to the right shows RapidChip's navigator window. Designed to integrate the dozens of tools LSI provides for designing a RapidChip the purpose of the navigator is to answer: What have I done, and what do I do next?