Vlad Bril, co-author of "Challenges of Mixed-Signal Deisgn" (ISD Magazine, June 2000 p. 48) responds to reader Rod Rebello's concerns that the article failed to address the isue of full-chip simulation (ISD Magazine, October 2000 Feedback).

Dear Reader:

Thank you for your interest in our article (by Vlad Bril and Nilesh Amin), and for taking the time to learn more about it.

You are right. The article did not talk about full-chip, mixed-signal validation.

The answer to your question is: Yes. Full-chip, model-based simulations were performed. At the same time, if there is any new methodology, or tool, to help in dealing with full-chip, mixed-signal verification, I will be interested to know about it.

Vlad Bril, Telecruz Technology

http://www.isdmag.com

© 2000 Miller Freeman Inc.
11/1/00, Issue # 12137, page 8.

Acronym Agony

To the Editor:

I thought your new magazine looks great. Some of it was very interesting. Your cover story by Tim Daniels (ISD Magazine August 2000 p. 26) was very disturbing. It did not communicate anything to me. WHAT is IP? To me and my fellow technical employees, IP is Internet Protocol! That did not seem to fit the text too well. The ABC soup gets worse and worse.

Would you please define IP for me?

Suggestion for communicating: define each abbreviation, regardless of how well known you think it is. For example, the author of your cover story defined SOC, but neglected to define his own topic. I should think an editor would notice this. If you think this would be too much trouble, maybe you could print a glossary in each issue that defines all this stuff.

It is a serious communications problem that exists industry wide. Maybe there should be a glossary law for all technical magazines. Just think of a newcomer out of college-he is totally lost for information that tells him what the article is about. It is getting worse each year.

I wish you success in editing the next issue. Remember the purpose is to communicate with anyone that may make the effort to read your product. Encryption of text is not a good policy.

Richard Calhoun, ISD Magazine subscriber

ISD Magazine replies:

We generally do expand many acronyms in our articles, but appreciate your drawing our attention to the oversight in our September Cover Story. The art of editing is just that-an art, not a science. We do not, for instance, expand the acronyms ASIC, FPGA, IC, RAM, MIPS, JTAG, PCI, or USB because we believe our readership uses these terms far more often than they ever use the expanded form. Similarly, we would probably not expand LAN, WAN, LEF, or DEF because of the presumed nature of our readership.

Having said that, we are fully in support of your sentiments. Our alphabet soup is often indefensible and we need to be more diligent in expanding any, or all, acronyms to ensure our readers' learning experience.

We will be moving to a redesign of our magazine with our January 2001 issue. Part of our plan, based in part on feedback such as yours, is to include acronym and key word glossaries for our articles in order to help with deciphering the potentially undecipherable.

Meanwhile, for fun, please see ISD Senior Editor Mike Maisen's online article lamenting the current state of affairs with regards to acronyms in techno-speak.

http://www.isdmag.com/articles/notebook/033100.html

Thanks for your continued interest in ISD Magazine. Peggy Aycinena, Editor

http://www.isdmag.com