Semiconductor Design & EDA

IBM documented its 700 series computers using what is attributed as the earliest electronic design automation, with the Automated Logic Diagram system running on the IBM 704 and 705. Engineers drafted logic schematics by hand, transcribed them onto standardised templates and converted them to punch cards for digital processing. This established the principle that machine-readable design data could be processed computationally.

Developers moved beyond mere drafting automation to automating circuit design itself, producing the first placement and routing tools. Because of the Cold War, these developments often occurred in near parallel in the Western world and the Soviet Union.

Calma's GDS let engineers digitise and edit chip layouts on minicomputers rather than drawing them mechanically. It was the best-known product of the era in which the translation from electronics to graphics was still done manually.

The proceedings of the IEEE and the Design Automation Conference catalogued the majority of Western developments, and by 1973 the volume of work demanded a dedicated bibliography. This marked design automation's emergence as a distinct research field.

In the Soviet Union, progress in design automation was largely described through a book series beginning in 1975, in parallel with Western conference-based publication. The split reflected Cold War separation of the two research communities.

The 32-bit successor to GDS, GDSII accompanied a stream file format that became the de-facto standard for exchanging mask data between designers and fabricators. The format is still recognised in modern design flows, making it one of the longest-lived standards in the industry.

The book opened a new era by vastly increasing the complexity of chips that could be designed and improving access to logic-simulation-based verification tools. Designs could be simulated thoroughly before construction, making chips easier to lay out and more likely to work. The approach of specifying behaviour textually and letting tools derive the physical design remains the basis of digital IC design.

Managers and developers spun out of large electronics firms such as Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix and Intel, which had previously pursued EDA internally, to build EDA as a standalone business. The three companies were collectively known as DMV. Within a few years many specialist EDA firms existed, each with a slightly different emphasis.

Defence funding created VHDL, establishing a textual language for describing hardware behaviour. State sponsorship thus seeded one of the two dominant description languages on which the modern design layer rests.

The inaugural trade show at DAC gave the newly commercial EDA sector a marketplace and a focal point. It signalled the field's transition from academic and in-house activity to a commercial industry.

Synopsys announced its intention to acquire the simulation company Ansys, with the deal expected to close in the first half of 2025. The combination would extend EDA leadership further into multiphysics simulation and verification.

Siemens bought Mentor Graphics, one of the original DMV trio of EDA founders, and renamed the unit Siemens EDA in 2021. The purchase placed a core pillar of the design layer under European industrial ownership.

Synopsys bought SpringSoft, valued at NT$6.44 billion in late 2011, further concentrating verification and design tooling. It continued the pattern of large EDA houses absorbing specialist tool makers.

Synopsys absorbed Magma, which had a market capitalisation of around $507 million in December 2011. The deal was part of the consolidation of the EDA sector into a handful of dominant vendors.

Verilog joined VHDL as a popular high-level design language, and simulators quickly followed that permitted direct simulation of chip designs and executable specifications. Within several years, back-ends were developed to perform logic synthesis from these descriptions.