Altran is supporting ASML in its model-driven engineering efforts. Among other things, the software company in Eindhoven is assisting in the introduction of new domain-specific languages. It’s also defining the language architecture, which can be used to model the use of languages in the development process.
In recent years, ASML has made great strides in model-driven engineering. Altran is playing a major role in developing the necessary MDE facilities: the domain-specific languages in which ASML’s software architects and engineers write specifications and the software factory that then implements them. ‘We’re working with ASML to develop DSLs for various layers in the software architecture,’ says Niels Brouwers at Altran. ‘These DSLs are used to automatically generate the production software for ASML’s Twinscan systems as well as to validate and verify it.’
The adoption of MDE is a stepwise process, says Brouwers’ colleague Marc Hamilton. ‘It usually starts in a part of the engineering process where a problem has cropped up, or where things need optimizing. You notice, for example, that when you change one thing, you have to change things in 101 other places. So you wrap a language around it, with the associated machinery. Because you know how that piece is constructed, you can expand on it. And so you can incrementally raise the level of automation.’
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