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From: lewine@dg-rtp.dg.com (Donald Lewine)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: do chip timing specs mean anything (mail summary)
Message-ID: <755@dg.dg.com>
Date: 10 Aug 90 18:35:10 GMT
References: <1990Aug10.132443.23692@sbcs.sunysb.edu>
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In article <1990Aug10.132443.23692@sbcs.sunysb.edu>,
owen@sbcs.sunysb.edu (Owen Kaser) writes:
|> You'd find that the main-frames are typically the best designs
around, i.e.
|> they will be the most conservative.  They usually aren't done under
the
|> same constraints as designs at start ups, and they have more control
|> over the parts supply quality. 

Even more to the point, you can get lucky with a 50 chip design.  It
is harder with a 500 chip design.  With a 5000 chip design, if you 
don't design it worst case it will never work.

I worked on large computers (multiple 30" racks of logic for a CPU)
at a company that also built much smaller systems.  The engineers 
that built the big systems thought that the small system guys did
not do design in enough quality.  The engineers that built the 
small systems thought that the big systems guys took too long in
design and the resulting systems were way too expensive.  Now,
many years later, I see that both design methods were correct for
their respective markets.