Granted, tools are far from perfect, and when pushed to their limits, they naturally break down. Not only is that predictable, but it should be expected. No doubt EDA tools must deliver measurable improvements in design productivity, and vendors must be held accountable and brought to task when making false promises. But let's be honest-EDA tools are typically not the problem. There's something else far more problematic today: a lack of sophisticated tools for engineering management.

The dearth of advanced management tools is why a whopping 85 to 90 percent of all chip design projects miss their target schedules by an average of 45 to 50 percent. Better EDA tools won't do much to fix that problem. What's needed is investment in tools and infrastructure for engineering management.

Microsoft Project is about the most advanced, broadly available tool for engineering managers. This is pitiful, because Project is equivalent to schematic capture, a nice graphical capture tool that lacks intelligence. Advanced information technologies from companies like Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft and Siebel have deeply penetrated the "general and administrative" part of the enterprise, but no equivalent IT exists for the R&D organization. This is clear when we consider the enormous annual spending on EDA R&D and compare it with the investment in developing management tools.

But IT for R&D is far different from IT for G&A. One example of where improvement is desperately needed is in IC product portfolio management. In the absence of sound portfolio management, semiconductor companies will continue funding the development of chip projects that have no chance of meeting schedules.

Universally, chip companies initiate too many IC projects. Not surprisingly, this rapidly causes resource-management problems, because chip makers run out of qualified engineers to work on these projects. Most chip companies know this, but they lack a technically viable means to cull IC project plans not grounded in reality. IT that solves this problem will offer a tremendous return on investment.

Ronald Collett is President of Collett International Research Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), which provides research on trends in design and design technology. He can be reached and ronc@collett.com.