CHAPTER 1 - Introduction

Abstract

This chapter gives a detailed introduction to the various types and uses of Electronic design automation (EDA). It begins with an overview of EDA, including some historical perspectives, followed by a more detailed discussion of various aspects of logic design, synthesis, verification, and test. The important and essential process of physical design automation is discussed as well. Given an electronic system modeled at the electronic system level (ESL), EDA automates the design and test processes of verifying the correctness of the ESL design against the specifications of the electronic system, taking the ESL design through various synthesis and verification steps, and finally testing the manufactured electronic system to ensure that it meets the specifications and quality requirements of the electronic system. The electronic system can also be a printed circuit board (PCB) or simply an integrated circuit (IC). EDA comprises a set of hardware and software codesign, synthesis, verification, and test tools that check the ESL design, translate the corrected ESL design to a register-transfer level (RTL), and then takes the RTL design through the synthesis and verification stages at the gate level and switch level to eventually produce a physical design described in graphics data system II (GDSII) format that is ready to signoff for fabrication and manufacturing test. EDA can be viewed as a collection of design automation and test automation tools that automate the design and test tasks, respectively. The test automation tools manage the quality aspects of the electronic system, be it defect level, test cost, or ease of self-test and diagnosis.