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ECAD, Inc., based in Santa Clara, California, was an early vendor of electronic design automation software. The company was best known for its design rule checking product Dracula, but also produced IC layout and PC layout software. Eventually, in a merger with SDA, it became Cadence Design Systems.
ECAD was founded in August 1982 by Paul Huang and Glen M. Antle, who had worked at Texas Instruments, ITT, Teledyne, Data General, and (just before founding ECAD), the microelectronics products division of Systems Engineering Laboratories (SEL) in Sunnyvale, California. While developing a new computer design at SEL, the CAD group wrote a new (and very fast) algorithm for Design rule checking (DRC). These ideas eventually became the basis of ECAD's products.
In 1982, SEL was acquired by Gould Inc., and part of the CAD group spun out as ECAD.
ECAD's first product was Dracula, introduced in April 1983. It included a design-rule checker, an electrical rule checker, and a layout-versus-schematic consistency checker among other programs. This was followed by SYMBAD, an IC layout product suite.
ECAD sold only software, an unusual business tactic at this time. However, it was consistently profitable. In 1987, it went public on NASDAQ, and in 1988 in a merger with SDA Systems, it became Cadence Design Systems.
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. CAD software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing. Designs made through CAD software are helpful in protecting products and inventions when used in patent applications. CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The term CADD is also used.
Mentor Graphics was a US-based electronic design automation (EDA) multinational corporation for electrical engineering and electronics, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981, the company was acquired by Siemens in 2017 and is now known as Siemens EDA.
Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together in a design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Since a modern semiconductor chip can have billions of components, EDA tools are essential for their design; this article in particular describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits (ICs).
Synopsys is an American electronic design automation company that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon intellectual property and software security and quality. Products include logic synthesis, behavioral synthesis, place and route, static timing analysis, formal verification, hardware description language simulators, and transistor-level circuit simulation. The simulators include development and debugging environments that assist in the design of the logic for chips and computer systems. In recent years, Synopsys has expanded its products and services to include application security testing. Their technology is present in self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, and internet of things consumer products.
PTC Inc. is an American computer software and services company founded in 1985 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The global technology company has over 6,000 employees across 80 offices in 30 countries, 1,150 technology partners and over $1bn in revenue. The company began initially developing parametric, associative feature-based, solid computer-aided design (CAD) modeling software in 1988, including an Internet-based product for product lifecycle management (PLM) in 1998.
Calma Company, based in Sunnyvale, California, was, between 1965 and 1988, a vendor of digitizers and minicomputer-based graphics systems targeted at the cartographic and electronic, mechanical and architectural design markets.
In electronics engineering, a design rule is a geometric constraint imposed on circuit board, semiconductor device, and integrated circuit (IC) designers to ensure their designs function properly, reliably, and can be produced with acceptable yield. Design rules for production are developed by process engineers based on the capability of their processes to realize design intent. Electronic design automation is used extensively to ensure that designers do not violate design rules; a process called design rule checking (DRC). DRC is a major step during physical verification signoff on the design, which also involves LVS checks, XOR checks, ERC, and antenna checks. The importance of design rules and DRC is greatest for ICs, which have micro- or nano-scale geometries; for advanced processes, some fabs also insist upon the use of more restricted rules to improve yield.
VLSI Technology, Inc., was a company that designed and manufactured custom and semi-custom integrated circuits (ICs). The company was based in Silicon Valley, with headquarters at 1109 McKay Drive in San Jose. Along with LSI Logic, VLSI Technology defined the leading edge of the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) business, which accelerated the push of powerful embedded systems into affordable products.
OrCAD Systems Corporation was a software company that made OrCAD, a proprietary software tool suite used primarily for electronic design automation (EDA). The software is used mainly by electronic design engineers and electronic technicians to create electronic schematics, perform mixed-signal simulation and electronic prints for manufacturing printed circuit boards. OrCAD was taken over by Cadence Design Systems in 1999 and was integrated with Cadence Allegro since 2005.
Integrated circuit design, or IC design, is a subset of electronics engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist of miniaturized electronic components built into an electrical network on a monolithic semiconductor substrate by photolithography.
James E. Solomon is an American engineer and entrepreneur. In his lifetime, he has founded four companies, including one of the companies that merged to form the leading chip manufacturing toolmaker Cadence Design Systems. He is an IEEE Fellow and received the industry's Phil Kaufman Award in 1997. Solomon holds 23 patents in integrated chip design.
An EDA database is a database specialized for the purpose of electronic design automation. These application specific databases are required because general purpose databases have historically not provided enough performance for EDA applications.
The Layout Versus Schematic (LVS) is the class of electronic design automation (EDA) verification software that determines whether a particular integrated circuit layout corresponds to the original schematic or circuit diagram of the design.
The Electric VLSI Design System is an EDA tool written in the early 1980s by Steven M. Rubin. Electric is used to draw schematics and to do integrated circuit layout. It can also handle hardware description languages such as VHDL and Verilog. The system has many analysis and synthesis tools, including Design rule checking, Simulation, Routing, Layout vs. Schematic, Logical Effort, and more.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, California, is an American multinational computational software company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc. The company produces software, hardware and silicon structures for designing integrated circuits, systems on chips (SoCs) and printed circuit boards.
Joseph Ball Costello is an American executive in the electronic design automation (EDA) industry. He was president and COO of SDA Systems from 1987–1988 and CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which became the largest EDA company under his tenure, from 1988–1997.
Aldec, Inc. is a privately owned electronic design automation company based in Henderson, Nevada that provides software and hardware used in creation and verification of digital designs targeting FPGA and ASIC technologies.
GRAITEC is an Autodesk Reseller and developer of CAD / CAE software for the civil engineering and construction industries.
P-CAD was the brand name of Personal CAD Systems, Inc., a California based manufacturer of electronic design automation software. It manufactured a CAD software available for personal computers. The company was divested into ACCEL Technologies which was purchased by Altium in 2000. The last release of the software was in 2006 before it was retired in favor of the product Altium Designer.
ODB++ is a proprietary CAD-to-CAM data exchange format used in the design and manufacture of electronic devices. Its purpose is to exchange printed circuit board design information between design and manufacturing and between design tools from different EDA/ECAD vendors. It was originally developed by Valor Computerized Systems, Ltd. as the job description format for their CAM system.