Paul A. Gough

Scenarios-an industrial case study and hypermedia enhancements

A study of requirements elicitation and validation within an industrial environment is reported. The key features in this part of the requirements process are: scenarios, as the prime means of elicitation; identification of domain objects, to capture the language of the domain and Fagan inspections for scenario validation by stakeholders. The process has been evaluated from both the requirements engineers perspective and the viewpoint of the various stakeholders. The findings highlight a number of issues, both positive and negative, which are discussed. The deficiencies identified have stimulated our research. In particular it is our contention that requirements documentation need to break away from the fixation with purely textual documents to ones that are media rich. Examples of this research, such as the hypermedia Scenario Manager are described.

Two dimensional simulation of power devices with circuit boundary conditions

The use of Dirichlet boundary conditions at semiconductor contacts is not sufficient to describe many practical device situations. Two particular areas of interest that it precludes are the transient simulation of power devices and the calculation of the full I/V characteristics of an IGBT (including latchup), both of which require the inclusion of circuit and/or current boundary conditions. This paper describes and compares two methods that have been used to simulate these more difficult situations, namely a novel coupled approach that includes current Dow within a contact and a decoupled method.

An integrated device design environment for semiconductors

An integrated device design environment (IDDE) for semiconductor devices that is based on workstations and utilizes highly graphical and interactive input techniques has been developed. The framework of the system comprises a device editor, a mesh generator, and a graphical viewer which are interlinked by standard interface files. Into this has been installed a number of process (one-dimensional/two-dimensional) and device (two-dimensional/three-dimensional) simulators. The system has two major advantages. Firstly it effects, from a user perspective, a vast simplification of input to CAD tools without loss of generality and so may be effectively used in both development and research environments. This has been achieved via the use of graphical user interfaces utilizing WIMP and direct manipulation techniques which can produce input for any of the device simulators. Secondly, it facilitates transfer of results between modeling tools via standard interface files and so provides an open architecture which can be expanded without excessive effort. In addition, the software requires only a single workstation, making it economically attractive to small development groups. >