Design tools for analog and digital ICs

The process of integrated circuit (IC) design from general concepts of function and form to generation of the patterns that is shipped to the mask house, draws on a host of design tools, fertile ground for new, more productive electronic design automation (EDA) software. Among the products surging into the marketplace are simulators and parameter extractors with improved performance and capability, while tools that help engineers work with designs at a very abstract level, the so-called behavioral level, are beginning to appear. The largest design-tool companies are developing EDA platforms that take the design engineer all the way from abstract system-level design to the physical layout and wiring of the chip.