Hardware description languages in Italy

A common interest in languages that describe logic hardware has arisen when some universities and industries faced the problem of logic circuit design. The approaches they have taken to the problem, however, have been very different. The interest on the part of universities, as well as that of the research institutes, was stimulated when many aspects of logic design problems remained unexplored and offered ample opportunity for original research. During this phase industries were generally absent; their interest was aroused only when the problem became a question of development and production — that is, when it became evident that it was convenient to utilize automatic procedures for the development phase of a given logic design. This happened for two reasons: the quantity of logic circuits to be produced became large, and the cost and lack of flexibility of manpower increased — especially during the most repetitive and boring phases of the process such as testing of boards, documentation, etc.