Microelectronics

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Integrated circuits (ICs) today are designed using software tools collectively known as Electronic Design Automation (EDA). They are used for circuit entry, simulation, synthesis, physical design, verification and manufacturing preparation of various types of ICs.
A distinction is made between fixed integrated circuits (ASICs = Application Specific Integrated Circuits), which are usually designed for exactly one application, and programmable components (FPGAs = Field Programmable Gate Arrays; EPLDs = Erasable Programmable Logic Devices), which can be used more flexibly but are more difficult and therefore more expensive to manufacture.

The development software is obtained from a European training initiative founded in 1989 under the name EUROCHIP with the aim of promoting the training of microelectronics engineers in Europe. Since 1995, the institution has been operating under the name EUROPRACTICE and since then has been offering every service offered throughout Europe from only one central location, namely from institutions in Great Britain, Belgium and Denmark. The initiative is supported by the EU in Brussels. Due to the effective support by EUROCHIP / EUROPRACTICE, a number of research and training projects could be realized in the field of microelectronics at universities in the meantime.

Software offered through EUROPRACTICE

• Cadence
• Coventor
• Intel Quartus
• Mentor Graphics
• Synopsys
• Xilinx