EDA is an important tool for the development of the electronics industry, spanning the entire design process from chips to end products.Chip-level EDA and board-level (PCB) EDA are two important branches of electronic design automation (EDA). Today, we will discuss the differences between the two in terms of design objects, core tasks, and application stages.
1. Design Objects: From “Micro Chips” to “Macro Circuit Boards”
Chip-level EDA (IC EDA) focuses on the design of integrated circuits (ICs), including digital chips, analog chips, and mixed-signal chips. It is akin to precisely arranging hundreds of millions or even billions of transistors on a silicon wafer the size of a fingernail, such as the internal circuits of CPUs, GPUs, and mobile SoCs.
Board-level EDA (PCB EDA) targets printed circuit boards (PCBs). It involves “assembling” already manufactured chips, resistors, capacitors, and other components onto a circuit board and designing the wire connections between them, such as in mobile phone motherboards, computer motherboards, and router circuit boards, corresponding to the “system end” of electronic design.
2. Core Tasks: From “Chip Dreaming” to “System Realization”
The core goal of chip-level EDA is to achieve a balance between performance, power consumption, and area under advanced processes. Tasks include chip architecture design, logic simulation, circuit design, layout and routing, timing analysis, and physical verification, which are critical to determining the chip’s performance, power consumption, and yield. This is similar to the precise design of blueprints for building a house, where every rebar and brick’s position must be planned to ensure the house is stable and comfortable.
The core of board-level EDA is to enable multiple chips and components to work together, primarily addressing system-level issues such as signal integrity and electromagnetic compatibility, ensuring that the circuit board can operate stably at high speeds. This mainly involves PCB layout, routing, signal integrity analysis, and power integrity analysis, which directly determine the stability and reliability of the end product.
3. Application Stages: From “Pre-Chip Production” to “Pre-End Product Assembly”
Based on the different concepts and tasks of these two tools, chip-level EDA is used in the design phase before chip tape-out, serving as the “upstream core tool” of the chip industry, without which chip design cannot be completed. In contrast, board-level EDA is used in the product development phase after chip production, acting as the “midstream tool” for electronic device product development, which is a key link in transforming chips into actual products.
Chip-level EDA and board-level EDA represent two different levels in the field of electronic design, working together to achieve the transition from “chip design” to “product realization.” Currently, driven by policy support and market demand, domestic EDA has achieved partial breakthroughs, but the development gap between chip-level EDA and board-level EDA remains significant. Board-level EDA is the “vanguard” of domestic substitution, having progressed from the popularization of mid-to-low-end tools to breakthroughs in the high-end market. Meanwhile, chip-level EDA remains the “battleground” for domestic substitution, with breakthroughs in niche areas but still facing shortcomings in the overall process. The technical differences between the two also dictate that domestic substitution must adopt a “differentiated breakthrough” strategy to overcome the “bottleneck” areas. It can be seen that domestic companies are working together to build a collaborative ecosystem, with several companies standing out in this effort.
Overview of Notable Domestic EDA Companies