With respect to simulation environments, the question is frequently raised if they are at all necessary, if they are beneficiary for industrial applications, or if they present merely a nicely designed cover-up for missing functionality and methodological flaws. Should VLSI engineers bother to get accustomed to a new environment, with new concepts, procedures, and possible drawbacks ? Or should they rather stay with existing solutions that have proven viable ?
The costs of migrating to new procedures and employing new methodologies should not be neglected. As with any transition process, failures and frustrations are to be expected. However, the benefits gained from such transition should outweigh the costs incurred. In general, a software environment should guide the user through a large number of complex decisions and operations, providing abstractions of frequently encountered tasks and limiting the number of erroneous design paths taken without imposing unjustified restrictions.
VISTA/SFC helps to liberate the users' time and energy to focus on creative design tasks by offering full programmability atop of a wide range of built-in functionality.