Pre-Eminance of Open Source Eda Tools and Its Types in The Arena of Commercial Electronics

Digital synthesis with a goal of chip designing in the commercial electronics arena is packed into large EDA Software providers like, Synopsys, Cadence, or MentorGraphics. These commercial tools being expensive and having closed file structures. It is also a financial constraint for the startup companies sometimes who have their budget limitations. Any bug-fixes or add features cannot be made with ease; in such scenario the company is forced to opt for an alternative cost effective EDA software. This paper deals with the advantages of using open source EDA tools like Icarus Verilog, Verilator, GTKwave viewer, GHDL VHDL simulator, gEDA, etc. that are available as a free source and focuses on the Icarus Verilog simulator tool. It can be seen as a big encouragement for startups in Semiconductor domain. Thereby, these open source EDA tools make the design process more cost-effective, less time consuming and affordable as well. Keywords—Open source EDA; MentorGraphics; Cadence; Icarus Verilog; GTKwave viewer; Verilator; GHDL VHDL simulator; gEDA; Linux; Github; VPI