BUS528: My project

Project Name: EMU system design(Extended Memory Unit)
Goal: This project is a sub-project under the whole Kalos2 system project. Kalos2 is a flagship flash ROM tester in Credence systems Corp. EMU is used to provide LVM(logic vector meory), DBM(data bit memory) and ECM(error capturing memory).
The timeline is not very clear when I was adviced to start this project, but I have to finish it at the same pace when we finish Kalos system
The budget is also not very clear in the beginning, but later on this prove to be a big issue.
Now let me introduce a little bit about the background of the company and the project.
Credence Systems Corporation was setup around 1977 by some testing veterans. It has been quite successful until year 2000, and it become one of the major ATE company in the world.
Credence provide testing equipment for semiconductor industry, and it has the trademark cycle of semiconductor industry, further ATE industry has more significant cycle than normal semiconductor cycle, the reason is because equipment is very expensive, easily over $1M, so when economy is good, ATE company make a lot of money from each equipment sale, but if economy is bad, people can't afford new equipment, they just use or modify old one for new features.
In about 1994, Credence acquired a company called EPRO, which was a startup to design and manufacture Flash ROM tester. Flash ROM was a emerging star at that time, so the flash ROM tester looks very lucrative at that time. It seems a very good acquiration for Credence to take on EPRO.
The original EPRO product was name Kalos1, after the acquisization, a much more powerful kalos2 was planed