Economics of point accelleration

• Authors: Eric William Burger;Guido Dedene
• Venue: EURO-DAC '90 Proceedings of the conference on European design automation
• Year: 1990

This paper examines point accelerators from the economic point of view. Point accelerators are devices that speed-up a specific part of the design process. Examples are simulation, routing, and graphics accelerators. The paper presents a general mathematical model for the economics of point accelerators. One conclusion of the model is that for many users there is no economic justification for point acceleration. On the other hand, by using opportunity cost models the paper shows the utility of point accelerators for specific groups of users. These users are those that require the most performance possible and those that have a narrow scope, such as PCB service houses. In addition, the paper examines the effect of using accelerators on multiple process. In this case, the result is that the increase in productivity is more than the increases attributable to the individual productivity increases expected from each acceleration step.