OpenAccess

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This article is about electronic design automation. For other uses, see Open access (disambiguation).

OpenAccess is a community effort to provide true interoperability, not just data exchange, among IC design tools through an open standard data API and reference database supporting that API for IC design. The OpenAccess Coalition is a neutral organization of industry leaders that are leading this effort operating under Si2 bylaws. The OpenAccess coalition was formed in Q4 1999. The members issued a request-for-technology for existing technology, looking for a solution that was proven and would be commercially adopted, and that supported a broad set of EDA tools. As a result, the Cadence Genesis database and API was selected and now forms the technology base for OpenAccess.

The OpenAccess API is a C++ program interface to IC design data. The API and reference implementation provide a high performance, high capacity electronic design database with architecture designed for easy integration and fast application development. Access to the reference database source code is provided to allow companies to offer contributions to future database enhancements and add proprietary extensions. It will also allow for this database to be used in production environments where software maintenance is critical.

Today's design environments are a complicated mix of design tools containing proprietary applications and associated databases, and with incompatible file formats and syntaxes. IC CAD engineers spend an inordinate amount of time integrating them with thousands of lines of translator code. The resulting flows are fragile and error-prone. As well, they are inefficient and result in longer IC design cycle times.

Engineered for industry-wide interoperability, the OpenAccess database allows users to construct flows incorporating design tools from multiple sources to best suit their needs.

OpenAccess Coalition of semiconductor and EDA industry leaders, including Agilent Technologies, Altera, AMD, AnaGlobe Technology, ANSYS, Atrenta, AWR Corporation, Cadence, D2S, Dolphin Integration, Entasys Design, Fractal Technologies, HP, Huada Empyrean Software, IBM, Intel, Invarian, Jedat, MatrixOne, Mentor Graphics, Micro Magic, Oracle, PDF Solutions, Gmbh, Pulsic Limited, R3 Logic, Samsung Electronics, SiliconBlue Technologies, Silvaco, Synopsys, TSMC, Tanner Research, Teklatech, Tela Innovations, Texas Instruments, and Zuken.

Client applications can access the OpenAccess database through APIs in multiple programming languages: C++, C#, Perl, Python, Ruby and Tcl.

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