Software tools [technology analysis and forecast]

Many engineering software applications migrated last year from Unix to the Windows NT operating system. An unaccustomed camaraderie-interoperability-spread among applications from different vendors and between different stages of the design process. Meanwhile, the mainstream of electronic design got a new supreme court: formal verification. In the course of 1997, the migration from Unix to Windows NT, the growing need for interoperability and powerful verification tools, and the great HDL debate will continue. Added to these issues will be the evolution of the desktop computer into the platform for both engineering and administrative applications, new approaches to embedded and digital signal processing (DSP) design, and the impact of the World Wide Web.