An Overview of Electronic Design Automation

Semiconductor Review | Thursday, April 20, 2023

The scale of integrated circuits based on advanced process nodes might exceed billions of semiconductor devices due to the rising complexity of chip design.

Electronic design automation (EDA) refers to a consortium of computer software tools that help with the design, production, packaging, and testing of large-scale integrated circuit chips. It's a form of CAD (Computer Aided Design) that has been generalised. EDA developed in the middle of the 1960s from the ideas of computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided testing (CAT), and computer-aided engineering (CAE).

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Industrial software can be categorised into three main areas from the application link: R & D design, production scheduling and process control, and business management. PLM, MES, and ERP are typical examples of industrial software systems in these three fields, while EDA and PLM are related to R&D and the design of industrial software. Integrating the most recent developments in the use of electronic technology, computer technology, information processing, and intelligent technology, EDA technology uses computers as the working platform for the automatic design of electronic products. Integrated circuit design, production, and manufacturing are complex processes.

Driving the development of chip design, manufacturing and terminal applications, EDA design tools cover the front-end circuit design, verification, back-end physical design, packaging design and testability design of the industry chain.

Before the invention of EDA tools, circuit designers drew their designs by hand. Using EDA software, electronic designers can create integrated circuit products from circuit design to performance analysis to design IC layout or PCB layout, substantially increasing work efficiency and lowering labour intensity. This optimises the chip manufacturing process and drives the downstream links of the chip industry chain.

EDA is the most upstream and high-end industry in the integrated circuit industry chain in the semiconductor industry, the cornerstone of chip design, and one of the crucial support mechanisms for chip design innovation.

Types of EDA

EDA is particularly important for semiconductor design, but it also has significant uses in PCB board design and flat panel display design. Various claims have been made regarding the classification of EDA. EDA is frequently categorised into IC design software, circuit design and simulation tools, PCB design tools, PLD design tools, and other EDA software, among other categories. The division of EDA into digital design, analogue design, wafer production, packaging, services, and the other five categories based on products is another typical classification technique.

PCB EDA

PCB design and production are both included in PCB EDA. Protel, OrCAD, Viewlogic, PowerPCB, Cadence PSD, Mentor's Expedition PCB, Zuken CadStart, Winboard, Windraft, Ivex-SPICE, PCB Studio, TANG, and many others are examples of PCB design tools. Software for PCB manufacturing primarily consists of tools for PCB fabrication and process controls.

Flat Panel Display EDA

The FDA mainly consists of flat panel display design EDA for panel manufacturers. This design process includes circuit design verification, layout design, circuit schematic design, circuit simulation, circuit layout parasitic parameter extraction, and many more, like the design process of analogue integrated circuits with their own unique design process and design method. EDA is also the linchpin of flat panel display circuit design, similar to integrated circuit design.

IC EDA

• IC Design Category

Front-end design, additionally referred to as logic design, focuses primarily on the functional design of the chip, whereas back-end design, also known as physical design, focuses primarily on design related to processes, making it a chip with manufacturing significance. Chip design is divided into several subdivisions, including RTL writing, functional verification, logic synthesis, formal verification, DFT, layout and route, Sign Off, and layout verification. Because the specific procedures for designing digital and analogue chips differ, different EDA software is also needed.

• Digital Circuit Design

Front-end logic design and back-end physical design make up the bulk of it, and front-end designers and back-end designers typically play different roles on teams. Front-end design and back-end design are typically separated by the generated gate-level netlist, despite the lack of a standard and distinct boundary.

The front-end designer starts with the chip architecture and ends with the netlist, focusing on designing and verifying circuit functions and logic with the help of front-end verification engineers, architecture engineers, DFT engineers, etc.; Layout-and-route is the starting point for the back-end designer, and the final product is a GDSII file that can be submitted to the fab for tape-out.

Digital circuit front-end design, which primarily consists of the two components of design and verification, focuses on logic functions to meet required specifications. The specific procedure entails, among other things: top-level module integration and verification, logic synthesis, formal verification, static timing analysis, testability timing insertion, and overall system planning.

The implementation and flow of processes are mostly considered in the layout and simulation phases of the back-end design of digital circuits. The specific procedure entails such steps as wiring, signal integrity analysis, parasitic parameter extraction, unit layout and optimisation, clock tree synthesis (CTS), layout physical planning, power analysis, and physical verification.

• Analog Circuit Design

Analogue circuit design requires more long-term practical experience from engineers than digital circuit design does. The front-end and the back-end are typically handled by separate teams of engineers, blurring the distinction between the two. It can also split the design process into two phases: the front-end's functional design and the back-end's actual implementation.

• IC Manufacturing

EDA serves as a bridge and connection linking the two links of integrated circuit design and manufacturing. It is widely used in both wafer manufacturing and chip design. After the fab has finished designing semiconductor devices and manufacturing processes, it must use EDA tools to create PDKs, standard cell libraries, and IPs. Lithography calculations and yield enhancement during the wafer manufacturing process are also tasks that must be completed using EDA software tools. Device model extraction tools, process and device simulation (TCAD), PDK development and verification, computational lithography, mask calibration, mask synthesis, and yield analysis are examples of wafer fabrication EDA tools.

• IC Packaging

It provides a platform for packaging design, including package design, verification, implementation, and other connections. It should be mentioned that as chip processes get closer to their physical limits, 2.5D/3D packaging, chipsets, and other forms of advanced packaging are emerging as new ways to enhance chip integration. Additionally, demand for complete IC packages is becoming more and more like the situation during IC design. As a result, chip design is no longer a single-chip issue and gradually transforms into a multi-chip system engineering challenge.

Large-scale data reading in advanced packages has demonstrated that new issues have arisen and that the demands for high-density silicon interconnect assembly, high-performance yield, and low power consumption have raised the bar for EDA algorithm engines.

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