Ever-increasing time-to-market pressures make systemic high-speed design approaches a must, even in early design stages. However, such approaches are difficult due to the lack of integrated toolsets capable of meeting both 110 and interconnect needs. Additionally, electronic design automation tools begin to have theoretical and practical limits, mainly due to approximation methods used to solve Maxwell's equations. Gigahertz-speed data transfer rates also translate into tight integration of silicon and interconnects. This increased interdependency makes the traditional approach - designing systems components in isolation - obsolete.