Avise Partners. Job Search. Kevin Hess. Nuova pagina 1. Your Electronics Open Source | Share for life! Chip Design » EDA Tools Shouldn't Cost More Than the Design Engineer by John Tanner. EDA tools from the big three vendors are expensive. In fact, they're comparable to the cost of an experienced engineer in the U.S., Europe, or Japan. As market forces move some design activities to lower-wage countries, the cost of those tools becomes unacceptable. Fortunately, some EDA companies are filling this gap with affordable tools that have ever-increasing functionality.
The pressure to reduce design cost exists everywhere. Yet it is more pronounced in the chips that include analog circuits. In recent years, the demand for mixed-signal (analog and digital) IC products has accelerated. According to a recent Fabless Semiconductor Association survey, about 40% of the wafers ordered by its members were for mixed-signal design. This increase in demand is growing rapidly, thanks to high-growth markets like wireless networks and digital-audio devices.
REDUCING DESIGN COSTS Mask fabrication, design-engineering labor, and EDA tools are the three major contributors to design cost.