The development of a new design is often thought of as a fundamentally human, creative act. However, emerging research has demonstrated that aspects of design synthesis can be formalized. First steps in this direction were taken in the early 1960s when systematic techniques were introduced to guide engineers in producing high-quality designs. By the mid-1980s these methods had evolved from their informal (guideline-like) origins to more formal (computable) methods. In recent years, highly automated design synthesis techniques have emerged. This intriguing book reviews formal design synthesis methods. It also provides an in-depth exploration of several representative projects in formal design synthesis and examines future directions in computational design synthesis research. Written by internationally renowned experts in engineering and architectural design, it covers essential topics in engineering design, and will appeal to designers, researchers and engineering graduate students.

This book brings together some of the most influential pieces of research undertaken around the world in design synthesis. It is the first comprehensive work of this kind and covers all three aspects of research in design synthesis: - understanding what constitutes and influences synthesis; - the major approaches to synthesis; - the diverse range of tools that are created to support this crucial design task. With its range of tools and methods covered, it is an ideal introduction to design synthesis for those intending to research in this area as well as being a valuable source of ideas for educators and practitioners of engineering design.

This book brings together some of the most influential pieces of research undertaken around the world in design synthesis. It is the first comprehensive work of this kind and covers all three aspects of research in design synthesis: - understanding what constitutes and influences synthesis; - the major approaches to synthesis; - the diverse range of tools that are created to support this crucial design task. With its range of tools and methods covered, it is an ideal introduction to design synthesis for those intending to research in this area as well as being a valuable source of ideas for educators and practitioners of engineering design.

Over the past decade there has been a dramatic change in the role played by design automation for electronic systems. Ten years ago, integrated circuit (IC) designers were content to use the computer for circuit, logic, and limited amounts of high-level simulation, as well as for capturing the digitized mask layouts used for IC manufacture. The tools were only aids to design-the designer could always find a way to implement the chip or board manually if the tools failed or if they did not give acceptable results. Today, however, design technology plays an indispensable role in the design ofelectronic systems and is critical to achieving time-to-market, cost, and performance targets. In less than ten years, designers have come to rely on automatic or semi automatic CAD systems for the physical design ofcomplex ICs containing over a million transistors. In the past three years, practical logic synthesis systems that take into account both cost and performance have become a commercial reality and many designers have already relinquished control ofthe logic netlist level of design to automatic computer aids. To date, only in certain well-defined areas, especially digital signal process ing and telecommunications. have higher-level design methods and tools found significant success. However, the forces of time-to-market and growing system complexity will demand the broad-based adoption of high-level, automated methods and tools over the next few years.

The Leading Integrated Chemical Process Design Guide: Now with New Problems, New Projects, and More More than ever, effective design is the focal point of sound chemical engineering. Analysis, Synthesis, and Design of Chemical Processes, Third Edition, presents design as a creative process that integrates both the big picture and the small details–and knows which to stress when, and why. Realistic from start to finish, this book moves readers beyond classroom exercises into open-ended, real-world process problem solving. The authors introduce integrated techniques for every facet of the discipline, from finance to operations, new plant design to existing process optimization. This fully updated Third Edition presents entirely new problems at the end of every chapter. It also adds extensive coverage of batch process design, including realistic examples of equipment sizing for batch sequencing; batch scheduling for multi-product plants; improving production via intermediate storage and parallel equipment; and new optimization techniques specifically for batch processes. Coverage includes Conceptualizing and analyzing chemical processes: flow diagrams, tracing, process conditions, and more Chemical process economics: analyzing capital and manufacturing costs, and predicting or assessing profitability Synthesizing and optimizing chemical processing: experience-based principles, BFD/PFD, simulations, and more Analyzing process performance via I/O models, performance curves, and other tools Process troubleshooting and “debottlenecking” Chemical engineering design and society: ethics, professionalism, health, safety, and new “green engineering” techniques Participating successfully in chemical engineering design teams Analysis, Synthesis, and Design of Chemical Processes, Third Edition, draws on nearly 35 years of innovative chemical engineering instruction at West Virginia University. It includes suggested curricula for both single-semester and year-long design courses; case studies and design projects with practical applications; and appendixes with current equipment cost data and preliminary design information for eleven chemical processes–including seven brand new to this edition.

"These notes are about the process of design: the process of inventing things which display new physical order, organization, form, in response to function." This book, opening with these words, presents an entirely new theory of the process of design. In the first part of the book, Christopher Alexander discusses the process by which a form is adapted to the context of human needs and demands that has called it into being. He shows that such an adaptive process will be successful only if it proceeds piecemeal instead of all at once. It is for this reason that forms from traditional un-self-conscious cultures, molded not by designers but by the slow pattern of changes within tradition, are so beautifully organized and adapted. When the designer, in our own self-conscious culture, is called on to create a form that is adapted to its context he is unsuccessful, because the preconceived categories out of which he builds his picture of the problem do not correspond to the inherent components of the problem, and therefore lead only to the arbitrariness, willfulness, and lack of understanding which plague the design of modern buildings and modern cities. In the second part, Mr. Alexander presents a method by which the designer may bring his full creative imagination into play, and yet avoid the traps of irrelevant preconception. He shows that, whenever a problem is stated, it is possible to ignore existing concepts and to create new concepts, out of the structure of the problem itself, which do correspond correctly to what he calls the subsystems of the adaptive process. By treating each of these subsystems as a separate subproblem, the designer can translate the new concepts into form. The form, because of the process, will be well-adapted to its context, non-arbitrary, and correct. The mathematics underlying this method, based mainly on set theory, is fully developed in a long appendix. Another appendix demonstrates the application of the method to the design of an Indian village.

Embedded System Design: Modeling, Synthesis and Verification introduces a model-based approach to system level design. It presents modeling techniques for both computation and communication at different levels of abstraction, such as specification, transaction level and cycle-accurate level. It discusses synthesis methods for system level architectures, embedded software and hardware components. Using these methods, designers can develop applications with high level models, which are automatically translatable to low level implementations. This book, furthermore, describes simulation-based and formal verification methods that are essential for achieving design confidence. The book concludes with an overview of existing tools along with a design case study outlining the practice of embedded system design. Specifically, this book addresses the following topics in detail: . System modeling at different abstraction levels . Model-based system design . Hardware/Software codesign . Software and Hardware component synthesis . System verification This book is for groups within the embedded system community: students in courses on embedded systems, embedded application developers, system designers and managers, CAD tool developers, design automation, and system engineering.