Like so many other facets of our lives the World Wide Web is enhancing the way electronics designers do their jobs. 24/7 availability and access to a wide range of tools, hardware, and software is making Web-enabled design an integral part of chip- and board-designers' jobs.

Why the Web?
There are many reasons why designers include Web-based designing to their job toolkits:

• 24/7 access. The proliferation of enterprise engineering teams—geographically diverse designers located in different time zones—requires access to design files, tools, silicon IP, and equipment anytime day or night. Companies such as Synchronicity offer software for managing Web-based design management and collaboration. Web-enabling design gives engineers the ability to work from virtually anywhere they have a computing platform and Internet access.
  
  
• Remote Hardware Use. Using the Web, designers have access beyond the hardware that is available at the site where they are located. This capability lets a designer use an emulation platform offered on a pay-per-use or time basis from a third party (Mentor Graphics, for example) or simulate a design on their own company's server located in another city.
  
  
• Silicon IP Evaluation and Access. The ability to remotely test drive and download silicon IP (SIP) is feasible with the Web. The VCX (Virtual Component Exchange) offers an Internet-based trading exchange for SIP that benefits both vendors and users. Various SIP vendors utilize the Web to allow customers (and potential customers) to download SIP models for evaluation as well as the complete SIP package for purchase.
  
  
• EDA Access. Some companies offer the use of design software on the Web for creating or optimizing designs. Examples include Barcelona Design for analog circuits and National Semiconductor for power supplies.
  
  
• Information and Training. Several companies, including TechOnLine, offer a variety of technical courses and Webcasts, both live and archived, for increasing a designer's understanding of technology and products. The Web is also giving print media serious competition as a source of editorial content—white papers, articles, viewpoints, and news—for designer consumption. Some companies, such as Cadence, have set up their own Internet-based Web communities for engineers using their products.
  
  
• Data Exchange Between Companies. The Internet provides an excellent medium for receiving and transmitting data among companies collaborating on a design. For example, at the recent International Test Conference (ITC) Agilent and Synopsys showed a hard-wired link between the booths of the two companies moving data from Synopsys' TetraMAX ATPG automatic test-pattern generation tool and the Agilent 93000 ATE platform. This link could have easily been implemented over the Web. As another example, silicon foundries routinely use the Internet to get input from customers.
  
  
• Communication. A critical part of any design is communication between design-team members, between the design team and the rest of the company, and to and from customers and outside vendors. The Internet and email have immeasurably simplified how designers (and all of us) communicate, offering anytime access and simple archiving of information and files. Just think of how infrequently you fax a document or mail a letter now compared to just five years ago.

Making Web-enabled design part of an electronics designer's toolbox is not without its challenges. One of the more common problems is overcoming a company's firewall for receiving data from an outside source. Barriers to Web-based design include stripping away email attachments, blocking file transfers, and prohibiting streaming audio for Web-based training courses and seminars (although most e-learning vendors offer screen-based text transcripts with their products). Since there are no industry-wide firewall standards, overcoming firewall problems is generally done on a one-by-one basis cooperatively by the organizations sending and receiving information over the Internet.

A second obstacle concerns the security of data sent over the Internet. Many data files contain highly sensitive information, requiring a secure system to authenticate the recipient of this information. While not 100% foolproof, current Net security has evolved to the point where the level of security is sufficient for most file transactions, although there is still the difficulty of convincing some people that the system is secure.

The Web is here to stay. Those of you who make best use of its capabilities for your design programs will reap the benefits of making your job easier and faster.