1.3 A measure of design productivity predicts the required engineer-months in terms of des...

1.3 A measure of design productivity predicts the required engineer-months in terms of design implementation styles, such as repeated transistors (RPT); non-repeatable unique transistors (UNQ); PLA, RAM, and ROM transistors; and the experience level of engineers (yr), the productivity improvement per year (D); and the design complexity(H). The formula proposed by Fey is

Engineer – Months (EM) = (1 + D)^-yr[ A + Bk^H ]

where the number of equivalent transistor count in the design is expressed by

In this formula, the transistor count is in units of thousands and the coefficients A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H are model parameters which depend on the designers’ experience and CAD tool support. The parameter (yr) represents the number of years since the extraction time of the model parameters. A set of sample values for these parameters are A = 0, B=I2,C = 0,l3,D = 0.02,E = 0.37,F = 0.65,G = 0.08,and H = 1.13.

(a) Discuss how one would extract the model parameters within a design organization.

(b) A 24-bit floating-point processor has been designed using 20,500 repeated transistors, 10,500 unique transistors, 105,500 RAM transistors, and 150,200 ROM transistors. Calculate the expected engineer-months (EM) by assuming the experience year value of yr=3. Note that the transstor counts in the formula are in unit of thousands, for instance UNQ=10.5, not 10,500.