SPICE is a general-purpose, open-source analog electronic circuit simulator. It is a program used in integrated circuit and board-level design to check the integrity of circuit designs and to predict circuit behavior.
Mentor Graphics Corporation was a US-based electronic design automation (EDA) multinational corporation for electrical engineering and electronics, headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon. Founded in 1981, the company distributed products that assist in electronic design automation, simulation tools for analog mixed-signal design, VPN solutions, and fluid dynamics and heat transfer tools. The company leveraged Apollo Computer workstations to differentiate itself within the computer-aided engineering (CAE) market with its software and hardware.
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, Inc. is an American electronic design automation (EDA) company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, that focuses on silicon design and verification, silicon intellectual property and software security and quality. Synopsys supplies tools and services to the semiconductor design and manufacturing industry. Products include tools for logic synthesis and physical design of integrated circuits, simulators for development, and debugging environments that assist in the design of the logic for chips and computer systems. As of 2023, the company is a component of both the Nasdaq-100 and S&P 500 indices.
Accellera Systems Initiative (Accellera) is a standards organization that supports a mix of user and vendor standards and open interfaces development in the area of electronic design automation (EDA) and integrated circuit (IC) design and manufacturing. It is less constrained than the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and is therefore the starting place for many standards. Once mature and adopted by the broader community, the standards are usually transferred to the IEEE.
OpenAccess is a proprietary API controlled by the OpenAccess Coalition that aims to facilitate Interoperability of electronic design automation software among the members of that coalition.
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, and perform mixed-signal simulation and electronic prints for manufacturing printed circuit boards (PCBs). OrCAD was taken over by Cadence Design Systems in 1999 and was integrated with Cadence Allegro in 2005.
Micro-Cap is a SPICE compatible analog/digital circuit simulator with an integrated schematic editor that provides an interactive sketch and simulate environment for electronics engineers. It was developed by Spectrum Software, and was only available with a paid commercial license. In July 2019, Spectrum Software closed down and Micro-Cap was released as freeware. Software updates and technical support are no longer available. In early 2023, their website went offline, though it was previously backed up at archive.org.
Quite Universal Circuit Simulator (Qucs) is a free-software electronics circuit simulator software application released under GPL. It offers the ability to set up a circuit with a graphical user interface and simulate the large-signal, small-signal and noise behaviour of the circuit. Pure digital simulations are also supported using VHDL and/or Verilog. Only a small set of digital devices like flip flops and logic gates can be used with analog circuits. Qucs uses its own SPICE-incompatible backend simulator Qucsator, however the Qucs-S fork supports some SPICE backends.
Technology computer-aided design is a branch of electronic design automation (EDA) that models semiconductor fabrication and semiconductor device operation. The modeling of the fabrication is termed process TCAD, while the modeling of the device operation is termed device TCAD. Included are the modelling of process steps, and modelling of the behavior of the electrical devices based on fundamental physics, such as the doping profiles of the devices. TCAD may also include the creation of "compact models", which try to capture the electrical behavior of such devices but do not generally derive them from the underlying physics. SPICE simulator itself is usually considered as part of EDA rather than TCAD.
Semiconductor process simulation is the modeling of the fabrication of semiconductor devices such as transistors. It is a branch of electronic design automation, and part of a sub-field known as technology CAD, or TCAD.
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.
PathWave Design is a division of Keysight Technologies that was formerly called EEsof. It is a provider of electronic design automation (EDA) software that helps engineers design products such as cellular phones, wireless networks, radar, satellite communications systems, and high-speed digital wireline infrastructure. Applications include electronic system level (ESL), high-speed digital, RF-Mixed signal, device modeling, RF and Microwave design for commercial wireless, aerospace, and defense markets.
AWR Corporation is an electronic design automation (EDA) software company, formerly known as Applied Wave Research, and then acquired by National Instruments
Duolog Technologies was an Irish-based company that developed electronic design automation tools that assist with the integration of complex System-on-Chip (SoC), ASIC and FPGA designs. In 2014, Duolog was acquired by ARM Holdings plc, a multinational semiconductor and software design company headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Dolphin Design is a semiconductor design company, founded in 2018 following its acquisition by Soitec. Formerly known as Dolphin Integration, it is based in Meylan in the Grenoble region.
Siemens Digital Industries Software is an American computer software company specializing in 3D & 2D Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software. The company is a business unit of Siemens, operates under the legal name of Siemens Industry Software Inc, and is headquartered in Plano, Texas.
Silvaco Data Systems v. Intel Corp was a trade secrets case heard before the California Court of Appeal for the Sixth District. Silvaco sued Intel for misappropriation of trade secrets because Intel used software produced by a third-party that had misappropriated Silvaco's trade secrets. The appeals court affirmed the decision of the trial court to grant summary judgment in favor of Intel, finding that merely using infringing software does not constitute a trade secret infringement in itself.
NanGate, Inc was a privately held United States, Silicon Valley–based multinational corporation dealing in Electronic Design Automation (EDA) for electrical engineering and electronics until its acquisition by Silvaco, Inc. in 2018. NanGate was founded in October 2004 by a group of semiconductor professionals with a background from Intel Corporation and Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. The company has received capital investments from a group of Danish business angels and venture capital companies. The company is today owned and controlled by its management following a management buy-out in 2012. NanGate markets a range of software products and design services for the design and optimization of standard cell libraries and application-specific integrated circuits. The market focus is standard cell library design and optimization for 14–28 nanometer CMOS processes.
Asen Asenov is a Bulgarian scientist and entrepreneur in the field of microelectronics and device modelling and has focused on Technology Computer Aided design (TCAD). Currently he is the James Watt Chair in Electrical Engineering at the University of Glasgow and the Leader of the Glasgow Device Modeling Group.
