Electronic Design Automation
What is Electronic Design Automation?
Electronic Design Automation or EDA is a category of software and hardware tools used by engineers to design electronic systems like Integrated Circuits (ICs) and Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). Because EDA tools automate complex tasks in design, simulation, testing, and manufacturing processes, they're an indispensable part of the development of electronic systems.
Information sources
Open EDA projects supported by NLnet
Naja EDA tool focused on post logic synthesis
Naja provides a powerful yet simple framework designed to help software and hardware developers efficiently navigate and manipulate EDA workflows. It is an EDA Python package that provides open source data structures and APIs for the development of post logic synthesis EDA algorithms such as: netlist simplification (constant and dead logic propagation), logic replication, netlist partitioning, ASIC and FPGA place and route, etc.
Project's own website: https://github.com/najaeda/naja.
Naja's projects supported by NLnet: Naja | Naja DNL | Timing Modeling and Integrated Verification in Naja.
KiCad A cross platform, open source PCB design suite
KiCad is an open source software suite for designing Printed Circuit Boards. The programs handle Schematic Capture, and PCB Layout with Gerber and IPC-2581 output. The suite runs on Windows, Linux and macOS and is licensed under GNU GPL v3.
Project's own website: https://www.kicad.org/.
KiCad's projects supported by NLnet: KiCad | KiCad-10 | KiCad-IPC | KiCad Frontpanel Generator.
Mosaic EDA tool for analog chip design
Mosaic. Today, the chip design industry is deeply proprietary with NDAs at every level which means it is not possible to share design files at all, stifling innovation and transparency in chip design. It's therefore essential to develop powerful open source tools for chip design. Mosaic is a tool that attacks the first design phase of an analog chip, or analog peripherals for a digital one: design and simulation of the schematic.
Project's own website: https://nyancad.com/.
Mosaic's projects supported by NLnet: Mosaic | Mosaic Simulation.
Ringdove EDA software suite to develop printed circuit boards
Ringdove is a modular, portable EDA toolkit mainly targeting the PCB design workflow. The two flagship projects in Ringdove are sch-rnd (schematics capture) and pcb-rnd (printed circuit board editing). Because of the modular layout of the code and the active management of dependencies, both projects are highly portable, both in time (old, present and future systems) and in workflows (interactive graphical design or interactive command line usage or headless automated processing).
Project's own website: http://www.repo.hu/projects/ringdove.
Ringdove's projects supported by NLnet: Ringdove | Ringdove alienformats.
LibrePCB EDA software suite to develop printed circuit boards
LibrePCB is a free and open source EDA software suite to develop PCBs. It runs on all major platforms and aims to be easy to use, while still beeing able to create professional schematics and PCBs. The goal is to make creating electronics easier, more efficient and less error-prone by using modern technologies and user interface concepts.
Project's own website: https://librepcb.org.
Ringdove's projects supported by NLnet: LibrePCB 2.0 | Slintify LibrePCB 2.0.
Edalize ASIC backend Create open hardware silicon with a fully free software toolchain
Edalize is a Python Library for interacting with EDA tools. It can create project files for supported tools and run them in batch or GUI mode (where supported). The Edalize ASIC backend project aims to provide an easy way to onboard existing gateware and full designs to an open source ASIC flow by creating a FuseSoC backend that targets this toolchain. This will enable a smoother transition from projects already running on FPGAs to also be targeting ASIC flows. It will also allow easier switching between different open source ASIC flows at the point when there are several alternatives to choose from.
Project's own website: https://github.com/olofk/edalize.
Frugal EDA Energy-efficient circuits and systems through quantum superconductivity
FRUGAL EDA is an open-source user-friendly software design suite dedicated to energy-frugal electronics based on the amazing quantum physical properties of superconductivity. Its objective is to enable the design of energy-efficient ultra-high-speed (up to clock frequencies of several hundreds GHz) quantum-based circuits and systems for the widest possible audience. One goal is to increase the number of students and newcomers interested to design quantum-based circuits without the need of unaffordable tools, proprietary technologies or steep learning curves.
Project's own website: https://www.sefira.org/software.
LibrEDA An integrated development environment for chip design
LibrEDA. Because digital circuits are a core part of today’s society there is a significant value in free and open chips and, equally important, free and open design software that is accessible also to small entities. Not only would this enhance trust through transparency and digital sovereignty through distributed knowledge but it would also be a fertile ground for education, hobbyists and small enterprises. The main goal of this project is to create a new libre-software framework for the physical design of digital integrated circuits. The framework is meant to simplify the development of chip layout tools, i.e. the tools used to convert a gate-level netlist into a fabrication-ready layout..
Project's own website: https://libreda.org.
VeriBench Verilog-AMS Testbench Framework for Open EDA Verification
VeriBench. Verilog-AMS is a hardware description language developed to standardise the description of device models and circuits in analog and mixed-signal design. It is widely used across both proprietary and open-source EDA toolchains. While Verilog-AMS standardises hardware descriptions, the behaviour and numerical accuracy of simulators and model compilers remain tool-dependent and require systematic verification. VeriBench will provide automated Verilog-AMS testbenches that enable systematic verification of semiconductor device models and representative analog and logic circuits.
Project's own website: https://github.com/deutzlukas-hub/veribench.git.
Chips4Makers Manufacturing a development version of the libre licensed Libre-SOC system-on-a-chip
Chips4Makers. In this project a development version of the libre licensed Libre-SOC system-on-a-chip will be manufactured in a 0.18um process combined with development on the open source tools and open source chip building blocks to make this possible. Development on the free and open source tools will be focused on making them compatible with the selected process and the building block development will be focused on the so-called standard cell library, the IO library and the SRAM compiler.
Project's own website: https://chips4makers.io.
Chips4Makers's projects supported by NLnet: Chips4Makers ASICs | Analog/Mixed-Signal Library.
openXC7 Improve hardware support for open source FPGA tooling
openXC7. FPGAs are reconfigurable chips capable of handling many electronic signals in parallel. The functionality of FPGAs is determined by a configuration file which is loaded into the FPGA at power-on. The configuration file is usually generated from a design file by a proprietary tool provided by the manufacturer of the FPGA. openXC7 will provide a complete set of open source tools to generate a configuration file for the widely used family of Xilinx Series 7 FPGAs from manufacturer Xilinx/AMD without having to use any proprietary tools.
Project's own website: https://github.com/OpenXC7.
TISG trustable image sensor gateware FPGA based camera providing encrypted video streams
TISG is set to develop an open-source, FPGA-based camera system, focusing on the implementation of the MIPI-CSI2 standard for connecting a wide range of image sensors to FPGAs. The development process involves leveraging open-source FPGA tools and formal verification methods to ensure robust security and functionality. The primary purpose is to create a secure, versatile, and accessible video processing platform that addresses current security vulnerabilities in video-based systems.
Project's own website: https://github.com/StereoNinja/StereoNinjaFPGA.
QUATT Design and understand solid-state quantum circuits
QUAntum bits of This and That (QUATT) has the objective of providing visual outreach tools to design and understand solid-state quantum circuits based on the FrugalEDA software design suite for superconductors. QUATT fills the gap between the quantum properties of superconducting devices obtained by simulations, including quantum interferences and qubits states and intrication, and innovative visual representations that capture the essence of the physics of such systems and help the end-user to design quantum circuits more intuitively.
Project's own website: https://sefira.org.
Acknowledgements
NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet programme, under the aegis of DG Communications Networks, Content and Technology. NGI Zero receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
