Essential Electronic Design Automation (EDA) * A unique, easy-to-understand introduction to the EDA software tools used to design IC microchips * Includes all aspects of EDA: business, technical, tool vendor and end user views, IC and EDA industry trends * Explains (in simple English) the concepts and terminology of IC design issues and the EDA tools that deal with them * Covers the complete range of EDA tools from electronic system-level through front-end functional design, synthesis, and backend physical design * Ideal for non-technical readers in sales, marketing, public relations, legal, finance, students, and new entrants to the EDA, semiconductor or related industries Essential Electronic Design Automation (EDA) demystifies this highly technical industry for anyone with a "need-to-know" about EDA. A friendly, informal introduction to EDA business and technology, clear enough for laypeople yet detailed enough for technical readers. The book also makes an excellent complementary text for cross-disciplinary engineering, business and marketing courses on VLSI Design.Simply and clearly, veteran industry leader Mark Birnbaum introduces the design problems EDA is intended to solve, the tools that exist to solve them, the designers who use them, and what makes EDA crucial to electronic product and chip design. * Explains how EDA fits into the electronic product and semiconductor industries * Examines the EDA industry from both the tool user and EDA software vendor perspectives, including business models, return on investment, and tool e * Includes electronic system-level tools for defining what ICs will do, front-end functional chip-level tools for design how the IC will behave, and back-end design tools for implementing the IC physical layout * Discusses EDA industry trends and IC design issues, including deep submicron challenges, intellectual property (IP), and system-on-chip (SoC) * Includes EDA standards organizations and publicationsIndustry newcomers will appreciate the book's extensive set of appendices, including primers on electricity, semiconductor manufacturing, computing, and common dimensions, reference sources and a complete glossary with acronym pronunciation.