Early days The earliest electronic design automation is attributed to
IBM with the documentation of its
700 series computers in the 1950s.
IBM has developed one of the earliest computer-aided design (CAD) systems, known as Automated Logic Diagram (ALD), which was originally executed on the IBM 704 and 705
mainframe computers. The design process started with engineers manually drafting logic
schematics, which were later transcribed onto standardized templates and converted into
punch cards for digital processing. Although focused on mechanical geometry,
General Motors’
DAC-1, built jointly with
IBM, was among the earliest interactive, graphics-driven
CAD systems and proved the practicality of screen-based editing for complex engineering data, an idea adopted by
IC layout tools. Prior to the development of EDA,
integrated circuits were designed by hand and manually laid out. Some advanced shops used geometric software to generate tapes for a
Gerber photoplotter, responsible for generating a monochromatic exposure image, but even those copied digital recordings of mechanically drawn components. The process was fundamentally graphic, with the translation from electronics to graphics done manually; the best-known company from this era was
Calma, whose
GDSII format is still in use today. In the early 1970s, developers started to automate circuit design in addition to drafting and the first
placement and routing tools were developed. Because of the
cold war, developments often occurred in near parallel. In the Western world, the proceedings of the
IEEE and the
Design Automation Conference catalogued the large majority of the developments of the time, In the
Soviet Union, progress was largely described in a series of books, starting in 1975.
Calma’s Graphic Design System (GDS, 1971) and its 32-bit successor
GDSII (1978) let engineers digitise and edit full-chip
layouts on minicomputers; the accompanying
GDSII Stream file became the de-facto mask exchange standard and is still recognised in modern design flows. The next era began following the publication of "Introduction to
VLSI Systems" by
Carver Mead and
Lynn Conway in 1980, and is considered the standard textbook for chip design. The result was an increase in the complexity of the chips that could be designed, with improved access to
design verification tools that used
logic simulation. The chips were easier to lay out and more likely to function correctly, since their designs could be simulated more thoroughly prior to construction. Although the languages and tools have evolved, this general approach of specifying the desired behavior in a textual programming language and letting the tools derive the detailed physical design remains the basis of digital IC design today. The earliest EDA tools were produced academically. One of the most famous was the "Berkeley VLSI Tools Tarball", a set of
UNIX utilities used to design early VLSI systems. Widely used were the
Espresso heuristic logic minimizer, responsible for circuit complexity reductions and
Magic, a computer-aided design platform. Another crucial development was the formation of
MOSIS, a consortium of universities and fabricators that developed an inexpensive way to train student chip designers by producing real integrated circuits. The basic concept was to use reliable, low-cost, relatively low-technology IC processes and pack a large number of projects per
wafer, with several copies of chips from each project remaining preserved. Cooperating fabricators either donated the processed wafers or sold them at cost, as they saw the program as helpful to their own long-term growth.
Commercial birth 1981 marked the beginning of EDA as an industry. For many years, the larger electronic companies, such as
Hewlett-Packard,
Tektronix and
Intel, had pursued EDA internally, with managers and developers beginning to spin out of these companies to concentrate on EDA as a business.
Daisy Systems,
Mentor Graphics and
Valid Logic Systems were all founded around this time and collectively referred to as DMV. In 1981, the
U.S. Department of Defense additionally began funding of
VHDL as a hardware description language. Within a few years, there were many companies specializing in EDA, each with a slightly different emphasis. The first trade show for EDA was held at the
Design Automation Conference in 1984, and in 1986,
Verilog, another popular high-level design language, was first introduced as a hardware description language by
Gateway Design Automation. Simulators quickly followed these introductions, permitting direct simulation of chip designs and executable specifications. Within several years, back-ends were developed to perform
logic synthesis.
Modern day Current digital flows are extremely modular, with front ends producing standardized design descriptions that compile into invocations of units similar to cells without regard to their individual technology. Cells implement logic or other electronic functions via the utilisation of a particular integrated circuit technology. Fabricators generally provide libraries of components for their production processes, with simulation models that fit standard simulation tools. Most analog circuits are still designed in a manual fashion, requiring specialist knowledge that is unique to analog design (such as matching concepts). Hence, analog EDA tools are far less modular, since many more functions are required, they interact more strongly and the components are, in general, less ideal. EDA for electronics has rapidly increased in importance with the continuous scaling of
semiconductor technology. Some users are
foundry operators, who operate the
semiconductor fabrication facilities ("fabs") and additional individuals responsible for utilising the technology design-service companies who use EDA software to evaluate an incoming design for manufacturing readiness. EDA tools are also used for programming design functionality into
FPGAs or field-programmable gate arrays, customisable integrated circuit designs. == Software focuses ==