EDA Database - Mature Design Databases

Mature Design Databases

Many instances of mature design databases exist in the EDA industry, both as a basis for commercial EDA tools as well as proprietary EDA tools developed by the CAD groups of major electronics companies. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, SDA Systems and ECAD (now Cadence Design Systems), High Level Design Systems, and many other companies developed EDA specific databases over the last 20 years, and these continue to be the basis of IC-design systems today. Many of these systems took ideas from university research and successfully productized them. Most of the mature design databases have evolved to the point where they can represent netlist data, layout data, and the ties between the two. They are hierarchical to allow for reuse and smaller designs. They can support styles of layout from digital through pure analog and many styles of mixed-signal design.