Integrating CAE tools into computer engineering courses

The use of CAE tools in digital logic and computer circuit design is growing in importance in two separate but closely related areas: first, by allowing the design team to bring new products to market faster, and second, to provide the tools needed to cope with the complexity and density of the integrated circuits used in the products. This paper describes our experiences in commercial quality CAE tools from Xilinx and Altera into our computer engineering courses. These tools include schematic entry and digital analysis in our logic circuits course, and the use of VHDL simulation and synthesis, and place and route tools for PLD and FPGAs in the VLSI and microprocessor courses.