Open Forum: The role of physical implementation in virtual prototyping of electronic systems

Different sectors of the electronics industry are exposed to different sets of problems and challenges, thus requiring different prioritization of resources. In particular, the development of low manufacturing volume systems (e.g., avionics, medical, defense) appears to require radically different prioritization of resources than the development of time-to-market driven high manufacturing volume products (e.g., mobile phones, notebook computers) [1]. Even through these two segments might be seen as at two opposite ends of a continuous spectrum, they share a common and critical dependence on virtual prototyping.