OpenAccess

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

OpenAccess is a coalition amongst integrated circuit manufacturers to provide a standard for designing chips.[1] It consists of an open standard data API and reference database supporting that API for IC design. The OpenAccess Coalition is a neutral organization of semiconductor industry companies that are leading this effort operating under Silicon Integration Initiative bylaws. [2]

Advanced electronic design flows are a combinations of proprietary applications and copyrighted EDA databases, with many different file formats and syntaxes.[3][2] As a result, significant efforts are required from IC CAD engineers to integrate them for particular projects. The resulting flows are often fragile, inefficient and therefore result in longer design cycles. This state of the affairs was the primary motivation for the OpenAccess effort.[4]

As of 2005, OpenAccess was the only modern integrated circuit design database which is publicly available. [3]

In 2005 the Cadence Berkeley Labs and the Silicon Integration Initiative launched the OpenAccesGear, a project to develop open source utilities on top of the OpenAccess database. Participants includued University of California at Berkeley, UCLA and UCSC.[5] OA Gear components are available at SourceForge. [6]

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 stored in an electronic design database with architecture designed to ensure easy integration of contributions from various companies which may implement database enhancements or add proprietary extensions. To this end, access to the reference database source code is provided. [4]

The OpenAccess Coalition consists both of EDA user companies (IC designers and manufacturers) and EDA provider companies, 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, Qualcomm, 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.

References

  1. ↑ Jamison, Rick (2010). The Ten Commandments for Effective Standards: Practical Insights for Creating Technical Standard. Happy About. p. 53. ISBN 978-1-617-30000-4.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Assessment of the OpenAccess Standard: insights on the new EDA industry standard from Hewlett-Packard, a Beta partner and contributing developer, Fourth International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design, 2003, pp. 203-207
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 EDA for IC Implementation, Circuit Design, and Process Technology, 2005, ISBN 1420007955, section "Modern Database Examples"
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 What is OpenAccess?
  5. ↑ "Open-source project looks to ignite EDA research" EE Times
  6. ↑ OA Gear

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