Design automation — A look at the future

Extensions and improvements in the field of design automation by means of improved descriptive languages and programming are considered. The language is particularly important for the early, system design, phase of a development. Programming improvements are discussed through analogies with the general field of automatic coding. The aspects considered are: data definition (symbolic references to items and indexing of repetitive arrays of units); subroutines, subsystems, and macros for describing identical and nearly identical units occurring throughout a system; diagnosis and check-out programs; and the organization of sets of design automation programs.