Shesha Krishnapura, Computing Technology/Design Technology, Intel Corp.
Ty Tang, Computing Technology/Design Technology, Intel Corp.
Vipul Lal, Computing Technology/Design Technology, Intel Corp

Index words: NT*, UNIX*, mixed-flow, cross-platform

Abstract

With the advent of low-price, high-performance Intel^® architecture workstations together with Microsoft* Windows NT* operating systems (referred to as IA-NT from here on) that support Microsoft productivity tools, the IA-NT workstation has become the preferred desktop for CAD design engineers. However, due to the complexity of migrating UNIX*-centric legacy CAD tools and scripts to an NT environment, a mixed operating system platform for CAD design has become a computing reality. This paper describes the innovative technical solutions for a production-capable NT-UNIX cross-platform CAD design flow environment for development, deployment, and maintenance activities. Although the target systems chosen are the ones used in Design Technology at Intel, our solutions are applicable to other cross-operating systems.

The NT-UNIX platform poses various technical challenges when developing the CAD design flows consisting of tools from both platforms. These tools have to work together on a shared design database while effectively utilizing common infrastructure scripts, despite the fact that each computing platform supports a different scripting environment.

To meet some of these challenges, we developed two technologies that allow seamless integration of software, designed for either the UNIX or NT platform, into a platform-independent production usage environment. These two technologies have been used to port more than 45 tools made up of more than 3,000,000 lines of code from UNIX to NT, and to execute more than one thousand test flows, as well as to develop a few mixed NT-UNIX applications.